


Don't Be In Such A Hurry To Grow Up

by CanuckleheadCowgirl, magnetocerebro



Series: The 714 Marvel Universe [30]
Category: Avengers (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Co-Written, Freeform, Gen, Hunting jerks, Next Generation X-Men, X-Kids - Freeform, best there is at what I do and what I do is wipe the floor with jackasses, making them pay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-24 15:51:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19726831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanuckleheadCowgirl/pseuds/CanuckleheadCowgirl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetocerebro/pseuds/magnetocerebro
Summary: 714 - Episode 27 - As always, the group at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters have much to contend with from old enemies and new threats. But it's a whole new facet of threats when the second generation of X-Men are in a rush to be bigger than they are!





	1. Smoke On The Water

**Chapter 1: Smoke On The Water**

Jubilee and Noh had figured out more or less the Terran equivalent of when Ael's birthday was, and they were sure to make a big deal out of it when it came up in mid-January. He'd never had a birthday party, not when the Shi'ar had invaded Hala when he was barely a few months old. So they wanted to make sure he had the whole nine yards.

It was under-the-sea-themed, with blue and yellow balloons and a tablecloth and plates that had different cartoon fish on them. Of course, Ael had pointed out that the pictures didn't look _quite_ like real fish, but he loved it all the same.

They had invited everyone down to LA to be part of the celebrations, which meant that Ael was following after Elin, as usual, totally entranced by the much older girl who could speak Kree and who was always willing to help him with his English.

"I learning fast," he told Elin with a proud smile. "Learning lots of words."

"You're doing so good," Sying agreed, totally proud of his little brother.

Ael drew himself up with a grin. "We working hard," he said. "Me and Dad."

"And Mom's teaching him all about fish and how to swim and what's _really_ important like how to get Miles to give him all the candy," Melody added, grinning. "Cause he can't climb the walls like we can."

"I like Spidey," Ael said, nodding happily.

"Everybody does," Amadi said, giggling as she pulled Celeste over to come play with her.

Ael broke into little giggles before he burst into a string of Kree — since he could speak it faster, and he wanted to tell his friends his stories about Spidey, especially how Miles would help him keep up with his wallcrawling siblings and how Bashir always made sure to play with him even if he didn't know any Kree at all to start with.

" _Which is funny, because Dad says Bashir's mom is Inhuman, which means she got her powers from Hala. She's like me and my family,"_ Ael said.

" _You have a good family,"_ Elin said with a smile, and Ael nodded.

" _I like them,"_ he agreed before Jubilee called them over so he could blow out the candles on his cake. He'd seen a few other kids have birthdays before him, so he knew what to do — but it was clear he was over the moon at getting to do all of the traditions _himself_ , giggling to himself the whole time.

"You take good care of Ael, like I take care of my little brothers," Krissy told Elin as they watched the little boy giggling over the first slice of cake — which Jubilee took from the middle, where the icing flowers were, just for him.

"I'll take care of whoever needs it," Elin promised. "In case everyone else is busy."

"Then I guess I gotta take care of you," Krissy decided. "You might forget to have fun, and that's my _favorite_ thing to do with my best friend."

"That just isn't going to happen," Elin laughed.

"Oh, good, because I like playing with you," Krissy said. She leaned forward with a crooked smile. "And guess what? My dad says that your mom and dad want to have another friend. For _my_ little brother." She giggled. "I'm not s'pposed to know that. Shh."

"They're not really hiding it," Elin told her. "But okay."

"Do you want to play outside?" Krissy asked. "Even though it's winter, it's not too cold outside when we come here, and there's a beach close by."

"Yes, please. Maybe we can build something on the beach?"

"Do you want to build a castle or a fort?" Krissy asked. "It doesn't _have_ to be a princess castle. We can be fighters instead. Like samurai or something."

"Or … you can be a pirate and I'll be a samurai," she grinned.

"That's a good idea," Krissy agreed, grabbing her friend by the hand as they slipped out now that the kids were all sugared up and doing their own thing. "We're going to go build sand castles!" she called over her shoulder — so at least the adults knew where they were and the bamfs could find them quickly if they needed to.

The two girls made their way down to the beach, and Krissy had to pause as they found some of the tidal pools. "This is what Ael talks about all the time, huh?" she asked, crouching down to look at some of the fish there. "He likes fish as much as I like pirates."

"He thinks they're pretty," Elin agreed. "Especially the octopuses."

"Well, he's on the right track," Krissy said, straightening up with a grin. "The ocean is pretty awesome." With that, she grabbed hold of Elin's hand again to pull her down to a good spot where the sand was perfect for sculpting, just wet enough to stick together for their purposes.

Krissy was busily working on what she claimed was a hideaway for pirates, while Elin worked on a samurai hold. They were working side-by-side easily enough until Krissy let out an impish giggle and reached over with her tail to knock over part of Elin's wall. "Oops," she said. "Pirate attack."

"Oh … I'm pretty sure this means war," Elin giggled before she picked up her driftwood sword.

Krissy let out a delighted laugh as she grabbed up a wooden sword for herself as well, immediately taking up a fencing stance. "Avast! You have _no_ chance, samurai scum!"

" _Hai_!" Elin countered before she attacked — but dropped the sword to tickle her elfling friend.

Krissy burst into delighted laughter as the two girls fell into a wrestling match right there in the sand. Elin had better moves than Krissy did, but Krissy cheated by tickling her friend's sides with her tail when she could, so it was actually a fairly even match — for tickling, anyway.

By the time the tickling match was over, they were both fairly covered in sand, too, and Krissy giggled as she looked down at herself. "I'm more yellow than purple," she said, shaking out her hair.

"It'll come out," Elin giggled, clearly out of breath as she laid back and started to make a sand angel.

Krissy laughed and dropped back into the sand beside her friend. "I wish we lived at the beach," she told Elin. "Mama used to live here, you know."

"I heard her talk about it," she agreed. "I like the beach too."

"I like the ocean and sailing too," Krissy said. "You should come sailing with me and Sying and Papa more."

"I don't know…."

"It's fun," Krissy insisted. "And you learn fast." She giggled and leaned in. "And it's funny to play with Sying sometimes. He's better at sailing than he is at staves, and he _hates_ it when you point it out."

"He's mad still because he can't win in karate yet," Elin said with a sigh. "But he only comes once a week, and I have Dad all the time … "

"That's because he's your _dad_ ," Krissy said with a shrug. "Just like my papa teaches swords, and his dad shows him space stuff."

"Yeah, my dad teaches me different swords," Elin said.

"Yeah, I know. Chance told me that," Krissy said. "He _loves_ learning all that stuff, you know."

"He's good," Elin said, nodding before she leaned forward with a whisper. "His dad is getting better too. _Shhhh._ "

Krissy giggled. "Well, Mama says practice makes perfect," she said diplomatically, then couldn't help but add, "But Chance is _lots_ better at archery than his dad. By, like, a million miles."

"Well, he's really good with that," Elin agreed.

Krissy turned over in the sand so that her feet were kicked up behind her, and she grinned Elin's way. "Not as good as _me_ , though. Not at archery."

"Not _yet_ ," Elin teased. "Because that's your _mom._ "

Krissy grinned even wider. "Well, everybody cheats differently," she said. "Kaleb's probably not gonna get to be a Hawkeye, though. It would be hard with three fingers, I think."

"I think he'll surprise you," she replied.

"He could do it," Krissy said with a nod. "My brothers can do anything they want. But it would be _hard_." She shrugged. "Kade has five fingers, though. And they're so _long_. Mama loves playing with him."

"I think he'll be good," Elin said, nodding. "He'll just need to practice more at first."

Krissy nodded. "I'm gonna watch out for my little siblings." She shrugged. "Kade's gonna need lots of looking after because he's not blue. So when I get bigger, I can be an X-Man and take care of him even better."

"Unless he wants to be an X-Man too …"

Krissy blew out her breath and waved her hand to show how much that wasn't a concern. "I'm a whole eight years older than him. I can take care of him always, even if he's an X-Man too." She grinned. "You know, like how your mom takes care of my mom sometimes. Or my dad and your dad."

"Or how my dad takes care of Chance's dad," Elin giggled.

"Papa says we're not s'pposed to say that out _loud_ ," Krissy giggled.

"Yeah, but that doesn't stop it being _true_ ," Elin pointed out. "And my Dad says we have to tell the truth."

"True," Krissy agreed. She rubbed some more sand out of her hair and winced as some got in her eyes. "I need a shower," she decided. "Or maybe…" She glanced toward the ocean. "A good wave?"

"Bubble bath?" Elin suggested. "Better than smelling like seaweed and fish."

"I like smelling like sea salt," Krissy pointed out. "It's a good pirate smell."

Elin shrugged. "I suppose. It's just a little strong."

"Not as strong as brimstone and sulfur, right?" Krissy teased. "You know if you're gonna be my best friend, you gotta get used to that stuff.

"That's true," Elin agreed, drawing in a deep breath. "Okay. We can go wading…"

Krissy giggled delightedly and leapt to her feet. "Oh good! I didn't want to go by myself." She grabbed hold of Elin's hand again as the two of them headed off in search of a good tide pool — one that had enough water for their needs and didn't have _too_ many fish because, as Krissy said, she didn't want to get an octopus in her hair or something.

"But it would match Ael's birthday decorations," Elin teased her.

Krissy rolled her eyes. "I'll bring him a seashell," she decided as they waded into one of the tidal pools, and the sand all over the two girls swirled into the water as it came off of them.

Once they were mostly clear of all the sand, Krissy looked around them both and gave herself a little nod as well as a deep sniff. "Well, now we both smell like sea salt."

"Yeah," Elin said, rubbing her nose and frowning at the strong smell of sea water and the fish that swam in it.

Krissy grinned and shook her head, splashing her friend with the water coming off of her fur. "Come on; we should go back inside so we can get some towels and some cake and candy."

Elin nodded, though she rubbed her nose once more and paused, looking toward some of the rocks. "Did your dad send some bamfs to look out for us?"

"Probably," Krissy said with a shrug. "He and Mama are kinda… Well. They're _very_ paranoid ever since Kade was born." She watched Elin for a moment as her tail swayed behind her. "Why?"

"Like you said — brimstone's stronger than sea salt," Elin said, wrinkling her nose.

Krissy tipped her head to the side. "Well, _I_ can't smell anything," she said as she climbed out onto one of the rocky outcroppings by the tidal pool. She glanced around for the bamfs, sure that they were up for having a little fun on the beach with her and her friend, but she didn't see any sign of the little blue guys.

What she _did_ see, though, was a tall man with dark hair and a wicked grin that he'd let spread across his face when he realized that Krissy had seen him, and her immediate reaction was to start _screaming_ as loud as she could.

Elin didn't even think before she grabbed the nearest thing to her and whipped it as hard as she could, aiming right between his eyes. He didn't quite teleport away in time, though he looked _mad_ as a serious gash dripped blood in his eyes. He wiped it away with one hand before teleporting over to the girls in an instant, stepping between Elin and Krissy to grab both of Elin's wrists in one hand so he could teleport off with her, reappearing much further out in the waves to simply drop her into the ocean — though not before she had kicked him in the knee and bit down on his hand hard enough to make him let go sooner than he meant to.

He teleported into Krissy's path before she could run too far to get help, though he didn't get much further than that before there were three distinct _bamf_ sounds. One was a bamf — with a soaked and shaking Elin. Another was Kurt. And the third was Logan with his own bamf.

Azazel glanced up just in time to see Logan charge, and a second before he teleported away, Kurt arrived as well, standing in front of Krissy and drawing his swords down — only to come up with smoke. Mostly. He must have nicked something, though, because he had the slightest red on the edge of one sword — which only had him growling out his frustration at being that close and not being able to run him through.

Though, obviously, the first concern was now for the girls, since Elin was clearly angry and scared, and Krissy was wide-eyed and hyperventilating.

Kurt knelt down next to Krissy in the sand and put one hand on either of her shoulders. "Are you alright, _Prinzessin?_ " he asked gently, and when she shook her head, he simply pulled her into a hug while she tried to get her breathing until control.

Elin had latched on to Logan and buried her face in his neck, dripping wet, not anywhere close to considering letting him go.

"Think Strange can find him from that blood?" Logan asked with a definite growl as he wrapped Elin up tightly. "Use the bastard's own tricks against him?"

Kurt looked almost like his father at the smile that crossed his face. "I'm sure he could," he said.

"Then call him," Logan said. "I don't think I can reach my phone."

Kurt nodded — not only to Logan but to the bamfs — and a moment later, they were inside the LA school, in Jubilee and Noh's suite, since Kurt figured they wouldn't mind sharing it for the moment and everyone was downstairs anyway. He set the bloodied sword down on a table rather than sheathing it, still holding onto Krissy with one hand as he pulled out his phone with the other to make the quick call.

"Is Elin okay?" Krissy asked into Kurt's side after he hung up, still clutching onto him for dear life — so she couldn't exactly check herself.

"She's upset," Logan told her, having heard every word himself.

Krissy glanced over at Logan and Elin for a moment, then to Kurt and seemed to make a decision before rushing over to the other two to almost slam into them with the force of a solid hug.

Logan shifted to put his arm around her too and then looked up at Kurt. "Think Strange'd bind that bastard to me for a few hours?"

"I think he might if he saw the state of affairs," Kurt said with his eyes narrowed as one of the bamfs showed up with the biggest, fluffiest towels he could find, dragging them along to Elin and Krissy so they could wrap up.

"All I'd have to do is make him not 'port and you can tell K what happened here."

One of the bamfs chattered at Logan, a little wide-eyed, making it clear that the only reason K wasn't up there yet was that the bamfs wanted to tell her _after_ Ael was done sharing his piece of birthday cake with her.

"Then you can be the one to tell her what she missed," Logan told him. "Good luck with that."

The little guy spread his arms wide, since he didn't want to scare Ael on his birthday with growls.

"And Kate?" Kurt asked with a slightly more severe tone.

The little guy shrugged again — though luckily for him, it was only a short time later that both K and Kate showed up with a bamf on their shoulders. And when Krissy saw that Kate had Kade, she let out a little noise of relief and rushed over to kiss her brother on the top of his head, nearly bowling Kate over in the process as Kate crouched down and sat on the couch so that Krissy could tuck in with them both, still kissing Kade and stroking his hair.

K took one look at the state of affairs and frowned, "What happened?" she asked warily, though her gaze was on the bloodied sword as she rested a hand on the back of Elin's head.

"My father," Kurt said simply, gesturing to the sword.

"Why is she _wet_ ," K growled out low.

"We were playing in the tide pool, and she threw a rock at him when he showed up," Krissy said, glaring from where she was tucked into Kate's side as Kate looked even more concerned at that. "So he dropped her in the ocean _way_ too far for me to swim to her and help," she added, sounding more distressed at the thought.

K and Logan both looked positively murderous at her description, and Kate could tell they weren't going to say anything further, so she very gently prompted Krissy, "And…"

"And he came right in front of me, but Papa got there with Logan and the bamfs," Krissy explained. "So he ran away because he's a _coward_ , like you said — and the bamfs got Elin out of the water."

Kate glanced up at Kurt, but before she could ask anything, he was already nodding. "Strange is on the way."

"He's going to show us how to kill him, right?" Kate said. "Because if you can just get me in a room with a dampener…"

"We've got his blood," Logan finally growled out. "I've got a few other ideas."

Kate paused and tipped her head Logan's way before she nodded. "I'm going to take the kids to Westchester," she said.

"Make sure Scott's with you," Logan told her.

"Yeah, I know," Kate said. "I just don't want them anywhere near him when it goes down. I'll take the bamfs, I promise."

At that, one of the little guys nodded and teleported over to Elin to brush her wet hair down, while another gave Krissy a kiss on the forehead before Kate and the kids disappeared, reappearing downstairs just beside Scott, with Elin still attached to Logan.

"Azazel tried to drown her," Logan told Scott. "We're going after him. Can you keep the kids for a little bit?"

It took Scott a second to switch from laughing at Sying and Ael to processing the very scared little girl in front of him to responding to Logan before he nodded quickly. "Absolutely," he said, already dropping down into a crouch so he could be at Elin's height.

Logan gave Elin a kiss on the temple before he tried to get her to go to Scott. "We'll see you at home," Logan told her quietly. "You know Slim'll keep you safe."

"Let's find you something that's not wet to wear, huh?" Scott offered gently, matching Logan's quiet tone as best he could.

"Okay," Elin whispered, though she was holding on to him as tightly as she'd been holding on to Logan.

Scott responded by holding as tightly as she was, and he nodded Kate's way before they disappeared with the girls and Kade — with the bamfs set to bring the rest of the kids with Annie.

"You want me to pick you out something?" Krissy asked quietly, clutching her own towel tightly around her shoulders as she watched Elin. "Cause… Scott's a boy."

Elin nodded, but it was pretty clear that she was starting to fall off the adrenaline crash. "Find something to wear to bed," Scott suggested, and Krissy nodded, quickly running off to come back with some warm pajamas that she knew were Elin's favorite for sleepovers.

By that time, Annie and the rest of the kids had appeared, and Annie immediately jumped into concern when she saw how scared Elin looked. "What do you need?" she asked — to Scott, Elin, Krissy, Kate, anyone who needed it.

"Are we having a sleepover?" Chance asked as he rushed over to Scott and Elin, totally wide-eyed on seeing Elin that way. "Are you okay?"

"I could use a hand," Scott told Annie over Chance's head, gesturing between Krissy, with the pajamas clutched in one hand; Chance, who was just waiting for something to do to help; and Elin, who wasn't letting go of him for anything.

Annie nodded and gently put a hand on Elin's shoulder. "Let's get you changed. And if you want, we can wash off the seawater."

Elin looked up at her for a moment and nodded before she slipped seamlessly from Scott to Annie, holding on almost as tightly to her as Annie carried her to their master bathroom, which had a bubble bath and a shower big enough to share, depending on how Elin wanted to wash off.

"What happened?" Chance asked, obviously worried.

"My evil grandfather," Krissy said, then glanced around to where all the younger kids were and frowned. "Maybe… let's go set up a fort for Elin to sleep over?" she offered, then whispered to Chance, "So the little kids don't get scared."

Chance glanced over his shoulder at the bathroom and seemed to hedge, so Krissy grabbed his arm. "Come on. Let's go get her teddy bear. I know where it is," she said. "Even when you're almost nine, teddies are good for this kind of stuff."

Chance nodded with a little smile. "Yeah, that's true."

The two of them made their way up to the Howletts' suite, letting themselves in because they knew their way around so well — and it wasn't until after the door was closed that Krissy finally turned to Chance and let out a breath. "Okay, so you gotta promise not to tell any of the little kids, because my evil grandfather is _terrifying_ , okay?"

"Do you think Elin will tell them?" Chance asked.

Krissy bit her lower lip as she thought about it and then shrugged. "I think she might tell James," she said. "He's almost as old as us anyway."

Chance nodded his head as he thought it over. "So … what happened?"

Krissy chewed on her bottom lip for a moment more before she took a deep breath and sat down on Elin's bed, pulling the teddy bear into her lap. "Me and Elin were playing in the tide pool when my grandfather showed up," she said. "He… scares me, so I screamed, and Elin threw a rock at him."

"Sounds like her."

"She _nailed_ him too," Krissy said with a little wicked gleam in her eyes. "He was bleeding, and when he grabbed her to pick her up, she kicked him and bit him and made him miserable, like you're supposed to do for things like that." She paused, and Chance was watching her openly before she added in a more subdued tone, "And then he dropped her in the middle of the ocean."

Chance stared at her wide-eyed. " _He did WHAT?_ "

"That's what I _said_ ," Krissy said, sounding angry about it herself. "She hit him with a rock, so he dropped her in the ocean. And then he showed up in front of me, but my papa and Logan got there first." She shook her head. "He scampered."

"He better," Chance muttered, kicking at the floor as he scuffed his shoes.

Krissy leaned forward. "The bamfs got Elin out of the water, but she was still in there for a little bit," she explained. "That's why she's so scared. I think she figured out how far out she was before the bamfs found her."

"She needs snuggles," Chance said quietly, nodding to himself. "She doesn't like the really deep water."

Krissy nodded. "So we should snuggle her," she agreed. "Your mom and dad have got things right now, but we can have a sleepover fort so we can sleep on both sides of her and keep her safe, okay?"

He nodded his agreement and took just a moment before he headed back to pick up Elin's pillow too. "This should help," he decided.

Krissy grinned at him and nodded. "Don't worry," she said. "My papa is going hunting with Elin's parents. And you know, the last time that happened, it was for Sabretooth, and he totally got his butt kicked."

"Yeah," Chance said, though he frowned a little deeper. "But … wasn't that guy a problem then too?"

Krissy nodded. "Yeah, he took my papa, and he messed with K." She shook her head. "It's because K let him have her blood to save me. I don't really understand it, but it made it so he could boss around my papa and K."

"But he can't do that now, right?" Chance asked.

She shook her head quickly. "No, not anymore," she said. "Papa was _so_ glad. That's why we went to Mexico." She reached over to loop her arm through Chance's. "That's why it's going to be alright, I think. He doesn't have Papa and K anymore, and you _know_ it's a really bad idea to make them mad."

Chance smirked. "Yeah, it is."

"So, we just have to wait until they get back, and maybe they'll be so relieved we can all go on a trip somewhere, _ja_?"

" _Ja_ ," Chance agreed with a nod, then paused. "Except… let's not go to the beach."

"Not if Elin's coming," Krissy agreed.

When they got back to the Summers' suite, Elin was sleepily hanging on to Scott's arm and leaning on him, her feet drawn up under her.

"We brought your teddy bear," Krissy said.

"And your pillow," Chance added, holding up the pillow so she could see it.

" _Danke,_ " Elin said before she let out a huge yawn.

"I'll take the youngest," Kate promised, already pulling anyone under age five with her. "So the big kids can sleep in."

"Thanks," Scott told her as he carried Elin to where the kids were setting up their sleepover fort. "You know," he told Elin quietly, "when Charlie gets scared or overwhelmed, I sleep on the floor beside her bed. Do you want me to stay here for you too?"

She thought about it and looked between Scott and the little fort they were making. "It's okay," she said quietly.

Scott nodded slowly. "Alright. But it would make me feel better if I stayed a little while. Is that alright with you?"

Elin nodded but didn't say another word as she finally let go of his hand, and the kids immediately enveloped her in their little fort, with Krissy and Chance on either side of her as Annie turned on a quiet movie to give them something to calm down—at least those that weren't adrenaline crashing like Elin was—while a small army of bamfs kept up a little vigil.


	2. The Only Escape

"Absolutely not."

Strange was standing in front of Kurt and the Howletts with his arms crossed, his tone a cross between offended and horrified that they would suggest blood magic to him.

"Hey. Turnabout is fair play, right? Just trying to level the field," Logan growled out. "See how he likes it."

"He uses it because his soul is already damned," Strange pointed out.

Logan shrugged openly. "And?"

"And for one thing, yours is not — and for another, I'd like to keep my own!" Strange said, sounding exasperated. He shook his head and turned to Kurt. "Now, I can track him, certainly. I can point you to where he is hiding or where he has been. But I will _not_ tie your souls together and damn us all," he added, turning now back to Logan. "Haven't you learned anything from your dealings with him? At all?"

"You're just being difficult," Logan said, his arms crossed.

"If it risks your soul, it's not difficult," Kurt said, shaking his head as he handed his sword to Strange. "And that is simply _not_ something I'll allow you to risk, _mein Freund._ And you know it."

"He's going after our kids — it's worth it," Logan defended.

"Not when there are other options," Kurt shot back. "I won't let you risk that just to make him suffer when I _know_ you can be creative in that regard without blood magic." He shook his head. "You don't get to take that risk for _poetic justice_. That's not good enough."

"It doesn't matter," K said, cutting in. "It's not happening; quit arguing about the what ifs and find me that sack of crap."

Strange gestured to K with one hand. "And there we have it," he said simply before he held a hand over the sword, a sigil in the air glowing brighter as the sword hovered on its own. It took several minutes, but when the sigil finally faded out, he looked up at Kurt. "There's a small village in Finland," he said. "Just a few miles from the coast. I can give you coordinates."

Kurt nodded once, taking his now-clean sword back from Strange to sheath it before he put a hand on both Logan and K's shoulders and teleported all three of them off to the village Strange had found.

The village itself was worryingly quiet when they arrived, though it wasn't hard to figure out where Azazel would have set himself up: a larger home built into the mountain that overlooked all the rest. That was where Kurt's next teleport took them — right to the front door.

"Are we splitting up and going around back or just kicking in the front door?" K asked. "I'm good either way."

"Personally, I'd rather just go in and be done with it," Kurt said as he drew both swords.

"No, no," Logan said, shaking his head. "He's got some time to put in first."

Kurt gave his friend a look for just a moment before he put his shoulder to the door, and the three of them spilled into the little villa. It was large enough that it took them a moment to look through the rooms, and if it had been any other team but the three of them, they would have missed the entrance to a hidden passage into the mountain — but the scent trail was there.

"Of course he took the creepiest idea from Creed he could find," K muttered.

"I think it came with the home," Kurt said, shaking his head as they pressed on into the hidden tunnel, finally coming out the other side to an open cavern, where it was clear why the village had been so quiet.

There were several bodies, drained entirely, as well as a familiar setup to Kurt — a throne, a table, all the "comforts" that his father was used to having.

Logan had gone completely still and was frowning deeply as he scented the air. "Get outta here, Kurt," Logan almost breathed out.

Kurt raised both eyebrows. "How far?"

"It's Arkady," Logan said as a means of explanation.

In an instant, Kurt disappeared, teleporting back to the villa so that he could start up a search outside of the caverns — and outside of Arkady's reach. "Really?" he all but growled under his breath. "Omega Red?" He let out another frustrated sort of growl before he started teleporting again, looking for any other sign of what his father was up to — and for any escape routes he might have had waiting that Kurt could put a stop to.

Logan and K were working their way through the hidden passages deep into the mountain after Logan described the owner of the scent to K and how to deal with him in hushed tones, trying to prep her for what they were going to come up against.

"He should be in stasis in Siberia," Logan said quietly. "Explains why Rachel found Azazel more or less out that way. Getting a life-sucking sack of crap to help him."

They finally reached the end of the last tunnel, slowing as they approached, since the scent was thicker, and the spores that Arkady let off were strong enough that they had Logan's head spinning slightly the closer they got. There was no way that Omega Red wasn't in the chamber beyond the turn.

When the pair of ferals finally stepped out, they saw more of what had been in the earlier chamber: bodies lying lifeless scattered through the room. But across the room, Arkady was draining a young man down to nothing, and as he did so, it looked as if some of the years were falling off of Azazel, his hand resting on Arkady's shoulder as it happened.

" _Snyltgäst_ ," K growled out as both she and Logan rushed forward to tear into them both, with K letting loose a string of curses and oaths in Swedish as she headed toward Azazel — though she was sorely disappointed when the old demon disappeared in a red swirl of smoke.

But it just meant that much more trouble for Omega Red as the ferals joined up to tear him to shreds.

The Russian monster laughed when he heard K's Swedish, but that was probably not the right move on his part, since he most definitely was not the person K wanted to disembowel, and laughing at her really only poured more fuel on the fire.

His attention was more on Logan, though, having fought him for years with plenty of success. He took the same approach as he always did, wrapping Logan up in tentacles and trying to suck his life force down to nothing as quickly as possible — though ignoring K when she was in that kind of a mood was not the right play.

While Logan tried to get an arm loose to cut off one of the tentacles, Arkady hit K hard enough to toss her halfway across the cavern. He turned his back to her, expecting a roar from her when she got up as Logan often did, but K didn't operate the same way Logan did. The only warning he got was the light scrape of the toe of her boot as she made her dive for him, slicing off the tentacle holding Logan cleanly but making it impossible for Arkady to control the death spores that he used to drain people.

He reached out with the other tentacle to try and catch her up, and as Logan worked his way out of the useless severed carbonadium tentacle, Arkady caught K by the ankle, pulling her closer to him.

She was almost within his reach to pull her over by hand when Logan threw a knife that had been lying on a table nearby and planted it in the center of Arkady's throat. He rushed forward and sliced free the other tentacle, then dragged K out with him as Arkady struggled to breathe.

* * *

Kurt, meanwhile, had nearly exhausted his search when he caught a sign of movement inside the church, and he found himself angry all over again.

He teleported into the church to find that his father was stooped over the altar — not praying, obviously, but recovering something buried in the floor there. A few books and relics, things that Kurt was sure he should not have.

"What are you doing _here_?" Kurt asked. He hadn't meant to ask it, but he couldn't stop the look of horror at seeing his father standing at the altar. Of course, he should have realized: he was no longer a full-blooded demon, just a magician with a demon's bag of tricks. But it was still something else entirely to see that.

Azazel straightened up and smiled when he saw Kurt. "I should have known you would be with your pets," he said with a laugh.

Kurt glared as he pulled out his swords, teleporting to his father in an instant and coming up with smoke as Azazel teleported to the far side of the church.

"Coward," Kurt snarled as he teleported to meet him there, and this time, Azazel met his swords with his own. Upon taking a closer look at his father, Kurt could see that Azazel was now a much younger man, and Kurt blinked in surprise for just a moment, enough for Azazel to knock him back into a pew.

He recovered his footing and teleported back to the fight, and for a long moment, the church rang with steel as well as the occasional wooden sound of one of the two teleporters crashing into pews and benches.

"So vain, my boy," Azazel breathed out, some of his old strength back in his strokes — though Kurt wasn't sure if that was because of whatever was making him younger or something else entirely. "To be so insulted that I have eternal youth and you do not."

"Is that what you're calling it?" Kurt ground out as his third sword came into play, and Azazel had to duck to avoid taking it across his neck. But it left him open to attack with the second sword, and he only just teleported out of the way in time, shoving Kurt to get the distance he needed.

"I was ready to take my leave of this place anyway," Azazel said with a sneer as Kurt teleported to him and Azazel teleported elsewhere. They followed each other for several teleports, leaving the church out into the village, across the rooftops, down to the main square.

"Because you can't stand to be anywhere we might find you," Kurt said through his teeth.

"Because I've already gotten what I wanted out of this village," Azazel said, waving his hand lazily. "I have other things to do. Youth and longevity is one thing, but _power…_ "

"You won't get any more power," Kurt promised him, teleporting to meet him at the fountain — and narrowly avoiding the blades that were waiting for him as he teleported away.

"Ever the optimist," Azazel muttered, shaking his head.

"Not something I learned from you."

Azazel laughed before he teleported to the top of the church tower, and Kurt was careful to teleport outside the tower so his father couldn't catch him in the enclosed space. "You and I both know I'm growing more powerful every day," Azazel called out. "You can't stop me."

"Watch me," Kurt snapped, diving for his father, but once again, the former demon disappeared. "Coward!" he called out as he spun. "Are you really that afraid to face me?"

"I simply have better things to do," Azazel replied. He disappeared again, and this time, when Kurt found him again, it was inside the church gathering his things. He grinned when he saw Kurt. "Tell that girl hello for me, my boy. I'm sure we'll meet again," he said.

Kurt let out a near growl, but by the time he teleported to the altar, Azazel was gone. In frustration, he kicked at one of the pews. He let out a little shout and then sheathed his swords, stepping out of the church with a glare before he teleported to the house to meet Logan and K.

"Logan!" he called out, stopping outside of the entrance to the cavern.

"Stay back!" Logan called back. "He's not dead yet."

Kurt let out another frustrated noise as he stood back from the entrance, feeling entirely impotent and worried all at once as he sat down in the nearby library, resting his head in one hand as he at least tried to get an idea of the books his father was reading.

It was more of the same, of course. Immortality. Eternal youth. Stealing life from others. And all of it had Kurt more on edge than before.

But it wasn't long before the two ferals came out, supporting each other, though clearly Logan had gotten the worse end of the deal and was still sporting marks around his neck from the tentacles. "He won't be using Arkady anymore," Logan told him. "I put a knife in his throat."

Kurt got to his feet with a frown and rested a hand on Logan's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Logan told him. "He just packs a punch."

"I can't say the same for my father; he seemed to be avoiding anything like a fight," Kurt said, clearly frustrated.

"You saw him too, huh?" K said, looking vicious.

"I saw a much younger version of him than I've seen before."

"Then he'll last longer when I peel his hide off of him," she growled out.

"He didn't seem too perturbed that we were here," Kurt said, glaring hard as his tail twitched behind him. "It seems he used up this village and was ready to move on." He glanced up at Logan. "What was he doing with Omega Red?"

"Using him to siphon people," Logan told him frankly. "Watched him drop a few years before he scampered off like a little rabbit."

Kurt frowned. "That... may be why Strange was unable to locate him. It's not magic."

"Well, it will be if he can find a way to use his corpse," K said, pushing her hair out of her face.

"Yes, well, all the same, what say we take a page out of your book and commit a little arson?" Kurt offered.

"Oh. It's already on fire. Not much to light, and apparently his spores don't spread the fire, but all of those drapey-looking fabrics should burn just fine," K said. "If Arkady isn't dead from the knife, the smoke will get him."

Kurt nodded. "Then we will have to look for the next place. I wasn't able to get my swords in him this time, unfortunately." He let out a sigh. "So, I believe, it's back to intelligence work." He gestured at the books. "More Viking lore," he told K. "We can look in areas that fit the bill."

K looked thoughtful for a moment. "What's the name of this town? Have you seen it anywhere?"

Kurt paused. "I think the signs are in Finnish? But you can look."

K turned and tried to find a sign that was anything other than a mile marker before she narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "No, that's Swedish," she said, tipping her chin up toward the old church. She turned to look up at the mountains in the distance. "We need a map. If he's digging around the old stories, he'll be poking around a few mountains, but not all of them."

"Easy enough," Kurt said. "If we can narrow it down, I can get us to the mountains and run him out of his hiding places." He looked between Logan and K. "I'd rather move now than risk him getting any more power." He held his phone out to K. "You know the stories best. Find us our next mountain, and we'll be rid of him for good."

K looked at the map, studying the elevations and trying to translate the names in her head quickly before she pointed to one that was a little further south but two countries over. "I think that's the oldest one."

Kurt simply nodded at that before, in an instant, all three of them disappeared in blue smoke.

* * *

Elin sat up stock straight, her blanket clutched under her chin as she listened to everyone around her sleeping peacefully. She sat like that for the longest time, listening until she decided that she wasn't going to be able to fall asleep without something close by — and the teddy bear wasn't cutting it.

She put the blanket down and carefully crept through the tangle of limbs, doing her best not to jostle anyone on her way out of the fort. When she saw Scott still sleeping nearby, she held her breath as she tiptoed around him as well.

When she finally got to the door of the suite that led to the hallway, she slowly turned the knob and slipped out into the hallway. Everything was dark, and the shadows cast off at odd angles from the windows and furniture, but she could see where she was going just fine.

She remembered what her parents had taught her about being quiet when she moved, and she nearly ran down the hall to her family's suite, again slipping in silently. She didn't turn on the lights as she made her way across the room to where her father kept their Japanese blades. She thought about it for a long moment before she picked up the sword that Logan had given her and clutched it tightly to her chest as she turned right back around and headed to the Summers' suite.

Again, she crept by everyone carefully, and this time, when she lay down, she was holding the still-sheathed sword close, curled up facing Chance since Krissy still smelled a lot like the sea, but it was very hard for her to relax, even when she was between her two best friends.

She was just starting to drift off when a strong smell of brimstone washed over the room — not from the bamfs. It was Krissy's stupid grandfather, creeping through the room until he spotted Krissy and smiled.

Elin closed her eyes for a second before she gritted her teeth and drew her sword as she got up — and even managed to stab him before he could see where she'd come from.

Azazel let out a gasp — loud enough to wake at least Scott and Chance — and backhanded Elin hard enough to send her stumbling. Scott caught her before she could land too hard — and it was Chance that got there next to kick the former demon in the face, breaking his nose and leaving him bleeding from his mouth as Chance looked smug for just a second before Azazel grabbed him by the foot. And twisted.

Chance cried out, and Scott fired off a shot before Azazel could pull Chance any further, but Azazel teleported out of the room — grabbing Krissy along with him as he did.

Scott swore under his breath as he got to his feet and hit the panic button, which would lock down the mansion and which alerted the bamfs — who were already teleporting the kids down to the Danger Room.

Azazel, meanwhile, had moved on from the Summers' suite to the Wagners', though since the panic button had been pushed, the bamfs were already there gathering up kids as Kate got Kade from his crib. The bamfs looked wide-eyed when they saw Azazel — especially when they saw that he had hold of Krissy with one hand around both wrists the way he'd held onto Elin before. He had a sword in the other hand lazily pointing toward Krissy, and he was bleeding from his side where Elin had stabbed him — and from both his nose and mouth.

Kate froze when she saw him, pulling Kade instinctively closer to her chest. "You look like hell," she said.

"I'm not in the mood for your childish antics," he sneered as he pulled Krissy closer, though his gaze was on Kade and he was smiling when he saw the little boy. "I'm just here to claim what's mine."

"Nothing and nobody here is yours," Kate shot back.

Azazel glared at her. "I don't have the patience to indulge you right now."

"Because someone shorter than you stabbed you," Kate said. "Little low for Annie…"

He nearly growled at her before he yanked Krissy closer to him, his sword dangerously close to her chin. "You know as well as I that I don't need to keep them alive when I'm through. And there's no requirement in the spell that they have to be anything but breathing. Give me the boy, or her final moments will be spent in agony."

He'd barely finished uttering his threat when there was a muted _bamf_ , and he turned just in time to see the flash of red before an optic blast first knocked his sword arm back and then a second solid hit to the chest had him hitting the wall and gasping.

There was no way he could win that fight, and he knew it — and the only reason it hadn't been a fatal shot was that Scott was more concerned with getting him away from Krissy. In an instant, he teleported before Scott could deal him another blow, reappearing not beside Krissy or Kate as Scott had expected but just behind Scott to stab him directly through the back of the knee, twisting to be sure it _hurt_ to repay Scott for interfering. Then, he teleported again, first to grab Krissy by the arm and then to Kate to wrench Kade out of her arms and disappear.

He'd expected to reappear in the altar room he'd carefully prepared for the ceremony he needed not just to steal back his powers but to make sure the children were artificially aged forward so that the powers would be at their highest level.

He had _not_ expected to find the room in flames — or to see Kurt, K, and Logan setting fire to the last of his scrolls.

"You imbeciles!" he shouted, startling Kade into crying. "Have you any idea the _centuries_ of history and magic you've destroyed?"

"At least nine. No more than twelve," K said, tossing the last scroll onto the fire. "My Old Norse is a little rusty, but the _runes_ were pretty clear."

Azazel let out a noise that would have been more of a growl when he was a demon as he shoved Kade at Krissy so he could draw one of his swords. The little girl clutched onto Kade with wide eyes before she stomped on Azazel's foot and, when that didn't immediately win her freedom, bit his hand to make him let go of her arm, even for a second.

For a moment, it looked like the bamfs that were on both Logan and K's shoulders had gotten to Krissy and Kade to get them out — but neither of them had moved, and the smoke was purple when Krissy and Kade reappeared behind Kurt. She was wide-eyed and clearly terrified and crying, but as soon as they were safe, she clutched Kade tightly to herself, and Kurt called out for the bamfs to "get them _out_."

The bamf with K immediately disappeared with the kids, which left three angry X-Men with a former demon who was bleeding from his face, side, and hand. But before he could disappear like he had every time before, Logan's bamf teleported him directly behind Azazel, and the former demon felt a cold metal collar snap around his neck an instant later, preventing him from leaving.

As he'd promised, Logan didn't simply kill him; instead, he sent a claw through a nasty pressure point before he kicked him squarely in the back toward Kurt. "Your turn, Elf. Just make sure you don't cover the blood scent on his right hand, wouldja?"

Kurt nodded. "That will not be a problem," he promised — since that was the arm Azazel couldn't use after Logan had torn apart his shoulder. The man tried to hold up one sword in defense, but Kurt simply bashed it away from him and immediately ran him through under the ribs. It wasn't anywhere fatal… immediately, anyway. "If you had stayed away from my family, this would be much easier for you," he told Azazel in a low, dangerous tone before he pulled both swords free. Without taking his eyes off of his gasping father, he asked, "Do either of you have anything to add, or shall I dispatch him and get back to my little girl and her new powers?"

"I think I'm happy with destroying his work," K said before she called Azazel some very condescending-sounding word in a language Kurt did not recognize.

Azazel glared her way before he turned his attention to Kurt. He had fallen to his knees, but there was still a sort of demonic fire there. "I'll see you soon enough," he said. "You and your pets and your penchant for torture. At least I've seen that side of you come out to know I won't go without when you join me."

"Kurt," K said, weighing it out. "Maybe it's too kind to end it quickly for him. You can go home if you want us to just … make sure he doesn't get out of here."

But Kurt shook his head lightly before he drew back, this time cutting Azazel's heart to ribbons before he pulled his swords loose and the man fell in front of him. "No," he said quietly. "I don't want him to die believing he's right."

"Then if it's all the same to you," K said, "we should light him on fire too."

Kurt gestured widely as he stepped back, not taking his eyes off of his father's body. "Go ahead. I'd rather there was no trace of him anyway."

It only took the two little ferals less than half an hour to get the corpse — and the entire room for that matter — into a full, boiling blaze, sure to destroy everything inside, even if anyone attempted to extinguish it.

As soon as it was clear that nothing could be recovered, Kurt and the bamfs took the group back to Westchester — the Howletts to the Summers' suite and Kurt to his own, where Kate was gently rocking both Krissy and Kade. Krissy had climbed into the rocking chair with her and was refusing to let Kade out of her sight. Kade was finally starting to calm down, since he was somewhere familiar and hadn't understood any of what was happening anyway, but Krissy was still clearly coming down from her terror.

At the sound of Kurt's arrival, Kate glanced up over the top of Krissy's head. "Kurt?" she asked, the question unsaid.

Kurt teleported over to where they were and kissed Kate gently and then Kade and Krissy on the tops of their heads. "He won't be bothering anyone ever again," he promised, and Kate looked entirely relieved, leaning back into the chair.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

He nodded. "He was badly hurt by the time he got to us, and we had an inhibitor collar prepared just for him."

Kate nodded lightly as Krissy glanced up at Kurt, halfway hiding in Kate's shoulder. "You killed him?"

Kurt nodded and gently brushed her hair. "He won't be able to get to you ever again, _liebling_ ," he promised. He kissed her forehead tenderly and then cradled her face in one hand. "And you were so brave, _Prinzessin._ I'm so proud of you."

She shook her head. "I wasn't brave," she said. "I just wanted to get _away_."

"And that is what makes you brave," he told her. "When you are scared and you act anyway, that is bravery."

Krissy nodded and let out a little sniffle before she threw her arms around Kurt's neck and the sniffle turned into a sob as she let out all the terror that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

When she was finished, Kade had already fallen asleep, and Kate had set him down and checked on the other two. Kurt didn't say anything except to whisper comforting things in both English and German to Krissy until Kate came back, gently patting her back until then.

But when Kate came in, he gave her a little smile before he tipped his chin down and lifted Krissy's chin with one finger. "But we shouldn't dwell on evil when we have something so wonderful to celebrate," he said. "Did you mean to teleport, _schatzi_?"

Kate stopped in the doorway, her eyes wide as she mouthed the word 'teleport' over Krissy's shoulder, and Kurt nodded once as Krissy bit her lip to consider her answer.

"I… was just trying to get away faster."

"And you did," Kurt agreed, pushing back her hair again. "Did you notice your smoke? It is your favorite color."

"I didn't really…." Krissy shook her head.

"Well, you'll see it next time," Kate said as she sat down next to the two of them, rubbing her hand over Krissy's back. "Now how am I going to keep up with you?"

Krissy shook her head. "I don't know," she said.

"And you know," Kurt said, still trying to draw out a smile from the little girl, "this means you can cheat when you race Sying, even with his super speed."

Krissy grinned impishly. "He _hates_ losing."

"Exactly," Kurt said, booping her nose. "You'll have to show him, once you learn how to do it when you _mean_ to."

Krissy nodded, a little smile stuck on her face before she rested her head back on Kurt's shoulder. He knew she had to be exhausted, but she also wasn't letting go of him anytime soon, so he picked her up to take her back to his and Kate's room.

"I'm too _old_ to sleep with you and Mama," she muttered, and he chuckled.

"I think your mama and I can make room for a special occasion."

Krissy frowned but didn't argue the point any further — and it wasn't too long before she fell asleep after that, with Kurt rubbing her back gently and telling her about how many things she could do to practice her powers.

At some point, Kate had climbed into the bed as well and simply curled up next to them, but it wasn't until they were both sure that Krissy was asleep that Kate let out a breath and gently kissed Kurt behind his ear. "Was it like last time?" she asked gently.

Kurt raised both eyebrows as he turned to face her. "I'm not sure I know what you're asking."

"I mean… the last time you killed him. I know it was the future you that deal the final blow, but…"

"No, it was nothing like that," Kurt said. He carefully turned so as not to disturb Krissy and gently pulled Kate into a kiss, but when she was still looking at him searchingly when the kiss broke, he let out a breath. "Even the way it went down… In that timeline, we had to bring so many of our friends to bear, and every stroke was hard won. In this… he was already worn down and powerless in a collar." He shook his head. "It was, essentially, an execution," he said quietly, frowning at the thought as soon as it was formed.

"No," Kate said, shaking her head as she pushed back some of his curls. "No, we had to fight for every stroke here, too. Billy turned him human, and he pushed every button he could. You got rid of his control, and he found a different way to come after us. Every step forward was two steps back, and when you had him cornered, you ended it."

Kurt nodded lightly, though his father's words were still ringing in his head. "I'm afraid I enjoyed it."

"And?" Kate challenged, her chin thrust out. "You're telling me you _shouldn't_ be happy about killing a demon, even if he's not red anymore? Even when he's been screwing with you this long?"

Kurt shook his head and couldn't help but smile at her as she got worked up. "Of course I'm glad he's gone," he said. "He's been allowed to go on for too long."

"And by killing him, you saved our kids from having to deal with him," Kate pointed out. She watched him carefully as she added, "You weren't here when he came for them. Elin saw him and stabbed him, Chance broke his nose… He hit both of them and then threatened to torture Krissy to try to get me to hand Kade over." When Kurt simply stared at her, his mouth in a little 'o' shape, she nodded once. "So… I'm not sorry at all."

Kurt considered her for a moment before he finally let out a breath and kissed her gently. "And neither am I," he promised. "But it sounds like I missed quite a lot."

"I'll tell you about it later," she promised before she pulled him into a kiss, though she wasn't quite done with him as she paused when the kiss broke. "Isn't she a little… young to be teleporting already? I thought she was practically a teenager in that other time before it happened. Even Charlie was almost ten."

"Sometimes it comes with puberty, and sometimes it's trauma," Kurt admitted with a frown Krissy's way.

"Oh." Kate looked over Kurt's shoulder to their sleeping daughter and then nodded once as she seemed to decide something. "Right. Well. That's the _only_ good thing your dad's ever done, then. Letting her get to play with her powers while she's young enough to really _play_."

Kurt shook his head at her. "No," he said. "This… was all Krissy."

"Yes, that's better," Kate agreed, laying her head on his chest with a sedate smile.


	3. Some Wounds Don't Heal

Logan and K had not expected to find the near pandemonium that was going on in the Summers' suite. Scott was laid out with one leg wrapped tightly, and Chance wasn't too far from Scott in the same situation, though he had his ankle wrapped instead of his knee.

"Look!" Chance called out when he saw Logan and K. "My Dad and I are the same! It's the same leg! Look! And we got it fighting the same creep! And Elin _stabbed him_."

Both of them glanced over to Elin, though K was the one to open her arms to her and pull Elin into a tight hug. "How did you stab him?" she asked.

"She used her _wakizashi_!" Chance told them, miming the motion. "But the bad guy hit her really hard and she couldn't get him again."

Logan turned toward Scott, but when he saw how frustrated Scott was with the whole thing, he figured he'd look into it later. "Kurt has some news for you beyond Azazel biting the big one. But I'll leave it to him to fill you in," Logan told him as he spotted the sword that Elin had used and picked it up, frowning at the blood still on the blade.

"I'm sorry I got blood in your room," Elin said quietly, peeking out from her mother's side.

But Scott was quick to shake his head. "No, you did exactly what you've been learning to do," he said. "Any bad guys who come after you kids …" He trailed off and looked mad for a moment. "I don't care about the blood, Elin. I promise."

"Even though you and Chance got hurt?" she asked. "Because I don't think I did it right."

"I'm okay, Elin!" Chance promised. "Hank said it's not broken, just twisted and swollen."

"And that particular bad guy," Scott said slowly, then paused. "Even some of the adults on the team wouldn't have been able to get in a solid hit like you did. You did good."

She stepped away from K to make her way over to Scott and give him a tight hug. "I'm glad you're going to be okay," she told him.

"Me too," Scott whispered back and kissed her cheek.

"Talk to you in the morning," K told Scott as she took James' hand and Elin returned to her side as the three of them headed toward their room, and Logan took a moment to gather up what he needed to clean the blood off of the little sword before he went to bed.

When K got down to their room, both Elin and James wanted to stay close, and by the time Logan got there after having cleaned the sword and burned the cloth he'd cleaned it with and put the wakizashi back on the stand where he kept them, both little ones were curled up next to K and sleeping soundly. "Room for one more," K told him, shifting her arm so that James' head tipped back onto the pillow instead of her arm.

"I'm sleeping in tomorrow," Logan told her. "I've had enough of all this crap, and I'm not gonna move until noon."

She smirked up at him , brushing James' hair out of his face as Elin turned into Logan's chest once he laid down. "I'm sure Scott won't argue with you on it," she told him. "Even if we missed a good story."

* * *

Tyler came in the next morning from Chicago after Hank had called him to let him know everything that had happened. In particular, he wanted to get a good look at Elin and Chance, since both of them had been hit when Azazel came through the mansion, and it was simply easier for the kids to see him and not have to worry about being bandaged up for too long — so they could move on to getting banged up for things like playing too hard instead of dealing with supervillains.

He grabbed some breakfast first before he headed up to the Howletts, figuring he would check on Elin before he got to both of the injured Summerses. He was a bit surprised to find when he knocked that the group of them were all still curled up when they were usually the ones to get up before everyone else.

"You want me to come back?" Tyler asked, pausing in the doorway.

"Nah, come on in," Logan called out. "Kind of pinned down."

Tyler smirked as he made his way over to see all the kids tucked in around Logan and K. "Yeah, I see that."

"You see Scott yet?" Logan asked, pushing his way to a more upright position.

"No, I figured I'd come here first," Tyler said. "Since I've got two patients up that way instead of just the one here." He tipped his head to the side and frowned slightly at Elin. "Just gonna make sure nothing got knocked around."

"Come on, then," Logan told him, though Elin was watching him warily.

"Don't worry; I won't force-feed you Twinkies," Tyler promised with a smile as he offered her his hand to sit down for a short scan that took a little longer than he'd expected. His eyebrows furrowed for a moment before he glanced up at Logan and then shook his head. "Not a thing wrong with her," he said, then gave Elin a small smile. "You're one lucky girl."

"That's kind of what we figured," Logan said, shaking his head with a sigh. "Not a mark on her — and I know Azazel hit her hard."

Tyler nodded. "Yeah, it took me a little longer. Fighting the current." He glanced back to Elin and smiled a little broader. "But hey, you can come with me to the Summerses if you want."

"I don't _want_ to say anything to them," Elin told him quietly.

"That's fine," Tyler said. "You don't have to, but I was thinking maybe you could keep Chance company while I fix up his ankle?" He grinned. "He'll need more help than you."

She looked up at Logan, who nodded and gave her a quick kiss before she slid out of bed and pointed a finger at Tyler. "I need to change. You wait here."

"Yes ma'am," Tyler said, making a show of sitting a bit more heavily to make sure she knew he wasn't going anywhere.

"She's a little worried about hurting Chance's feelings," K explained. "He wants abilities so badly, and everyone around him is getting them."

"Ah," Tyler said, nodding slowly. "Yeah, Rachel said it's been a little rough on both Summers twins, honestly."

"It's not like it's a surprise," Logan pointed out as he finally got himself upright.

"It was to him," Tyler pointed out.

"Yeah, but it doesn't make sense for her to hide it," he argued. "They already know she has claws."

"Since when do kids make sense?" Tyler shrugged. "Tris has been telling everyone that he's going to grow up to be a merman. They get weird ideas sometimes."

"No kidding. I just don't want her thinking she needs to hide it," Logan replied before he disappeared into the next room.

"We'll meet everyone downstairs," K told Tyler. "I'll have coffee ready by the time the Summerses get out of their room."

"Might take a bit," Tyler said. "Chance has a story to tell."

"And I'm sure he'll be tickled to tell you all about it as he gets a piggyback ride downstairs."

At that, Tyler grinned, and it wasn't more than a moment later that Elin poked her head out of her room, dressed for the day. "What do you think: should we go give the guys a hard time or do you think they need coddling?" he teased.

Elin looked over at her father as he came back out, ready to go too, and smirked. "Probably the second one."

"Yeah, us boys need the extra help," Tyler agreed as he stood up and offered Elin his hand if she wanted it as they headed out to go get the Summers boys.

She took his hand and waved at her parents as she and Tyler headed down toward the Summers' suite, where Chance was doing his best to mirror Scott — and was still tickled that they sported injuries on the same leg.

"Hi," Elin said quietly as a little blush rushed over her cheeks.

Chance grinned at her and waved her over. "Did Ty already look at you?" he asked. "Did you tell him all about how you stabbed a bad guy, because that was _so cool_."

Tyler was smirking as he sat down by Chance. "No, I didn't get to hear that part."

"Well, it was _amazing_ ," Chance insisted. "Elin's so smart, and so brave!"

"I didn't do it right," Elin whispered so that only Tyler could hear her.

Tyler frowned her way and shook his head lightly. "I bet it was really scary," he said, addressing both kids at once. "I know the first time I met a supervillain face-to-face, I was pretty terrified."

"Well, Elin got him in the side real good," Chance said, his eyes shining with admiration as he grinned over at Elin. "I don't even know how she thought to bring her sword — I guess it's 'cause she's so smart. And then I kicked him and broke his nose — CRUNCH!" He illustrated his point by slamming a fist down on his hand. "Not as cool as Elin, but … I didn't have my sword."

"I snuck out and got my sword," Elin said again, at a whisper.

"I'm glad you did," Chance said. "It was really smart."

"Ah, lovely," Hank said as he both knocked and let himself into the room. "I have the X-rays already," he told Tyler. "For both of them. Nothing broken on young Chance, thankfully."

"But I still get to get fixed up, right? Like Gerry and Elin? Even if it's not broken?" Chance asked, looking almost alarmed at the thought of not getting healed up.

"Oh yeah; if it's not broken, it's probably a sprain," Tyler told him. "And we can't have you _not_ running around leading the charge, right?"

"Right," Chance said, grinning happily and nodding.

Elin made her way over to sit next to him, though she was sitting on her hands and trying not to get in the way as Tyler came over and took Chance's ankle off of the pillow he had it propped up on. "This shouldn't take too long, but it'll feel funny," Tyler told him.

"Don't worry," Chance said in a consoling tone. "I'm plenty big. I'm not scared 'cause I've seen you do it lots of times."

Tyler gave him a crooked sort of smile as he shook his head and got to work, though since it wasn't too serious, it really didn't take much time at all before he let out his breath and looked up at Chance. "Be careful next time you kick a bad guy in the face, alright?"

Chance grinned at him. "You got it!" he promised before he hopped down to try out his new ankle, still grinning delightedly.

"Now, the more senior Mr. Summers will be a bit more tricky, I'm afraid," Hank said as he handed over the first of the scans.

Chance leaned over to Elin while Tyler was looking over the data. "That means it's gonna take longer. D'you wanna go play while we wait?" he asked. "I wanna try running on my new foot."

"Maybe," she said, shrugging lightly. "I'm kinda hungry, and Mom was going down to start breakfast stuff."

"Oh, okay, we can do that too," Chance said, nodding quickly and offering Elin his hand. "Let's go get Krissy too. I think she needs her friends."

"Is that okay?" Elin asked, looking toward Annie, since Scott was answering questions with the two doctors.

Annie smiled and nodded. "I think it's a great idea. I'll bet Krissy would love to see you both."

"Thanks, Mom!" Chance called over his shoulder, grabbing Elin by the hand as the two of them headed down the hall to the Wagners' suite.

"So, it looks like an easy enough fix," Tyler told Scott once the kids were gone.

"Comparatively," Hank added before he went into a very detailed description of exactly what had happened when Scott was injured — and how long it should take for him to bounce back if he'd been planning on healing the old-fashioned way. "But I doubt you'd be able to handle several months off," Hank chuckled.

Scott looked unamused at the whole situation he'd found himself in. "Yeah, no." He shook his head and looked toward Tyler. "Thanks for coming down."

"Really, I'm surprised we don't have a more regular need for me to be here," Tyler teased before he got comfortable to start the more extensive healing process. "Did you want painkillers?"

But Scott shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Alright, last call," Tyler said quietly, though he knew there was no chance Scott would even consider it. He shook his head and simply began, taking extra care to make sure that all of the tendons and ligaments were going where they should and that his knee was pulling itself together and staying on track, though he found himself frowning when he was very nearly done.

He concentrated harder and tried to see if he could reverse some of the _other_ problems he was finding that had nothing to do with the new injury, and though he did make a little headway, he did not want to have to confirm what Hank had already suspected.

"Alright," Tyler said as he let his breath out all at once. "I fixed everything that was fixable. But … you're going to have some trouble down the road."

Scott raised an eyebrow. "What, did he do something you can't fix? That's a first."

"No, no he didn't do anything that I didn't already fix, but this … was going on before that happened," Tyler told him. "I can't … undo all of the effects of the natural aging process. And you have beat the hell out of your body."

"It comes with the territory," Scott said with a shrug, already moving to get up and going again.

"If it starts to hurt or lock up, I'll give you a few things to take," Hank promised.

"I'm _fine_ , Hank," Scott said.

"You're not fine," Hank countered. "You're showing signs of… joint issues."

"Hasn't slowed me down," Scott pointed out. "It's not bad, anyway."

"Not yet, but it will get that way," Hank replied.

Annie looked between the three men for a moment before she rolled her eyes and let out a scoff. "Oh, for crying out loud. It's arthritis. It's not like he's got a terminal brain whatever. It's not the end of the world, and you two ninnies are going about like you're trying to tell him he's got a month to live. You're supposed to be X-Men!"

"Right, well. That's harder to do ... " Hank cleared his throat. "We'll keep an eye on matters."

"And so will I," she promised, which had Scott going from slightly amused by her outburst to looking distinctly annoyed by the situation again.

"It's fine," Scott said, waving all three of them off. "It's not an issue right now, so we'll cross that bridge later," he added, headed for the door. "Thanks for putting the knee back together, Tyler."

"Anytime," Tyler told him. "Did you guys need anything else? Any other injuries?"

"Why don't you stay for breakfast?" Annie said, resting a hand on his arm with a smile. "You don't have to be working all the time when you come by."

"Oh, I was going to do that much anyhow, I just don't want to get sidetracked if anyone else is hurting," Tyler said with a little shrug before he looked over at Charlie. "What about you? Did you start any fights?"

Charlie shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't start fights."

"Nope, you stop them before they start," he agreed with a grin.

She shrugged. "Well, I can tell when people are getting madder," she explained. "And I've been learning how to not let that make me mad too."

"Oh yeah? I didn't know Rachel was willing to share that little tidbit," he teased.

She giggled and shook her head. "No. Rachel's trying to show me how to turn it off. We're not really working on the rest of it. And Remy shows me how to tell the difference in emotions, 'cause some of them are really similar." She leaned forward. "And Logan showed me how to meditate so I can find _me_."

"He showed me how to meditate too," Tyler told her quietly. "Did he ever take you down to the pond?"

She nodded. "That's where we started before it got freezing cold," she said. "He let me follow him so he could show me how to find the calm."

"That would have been nice," Tyler told her. "It took a while for me to learn that, but while I learned, it still felt pretty good after the time was up."

She nodded happily. "I'm really glad he showed me," she said. "Especially because yesterday, everyone was so scared, and I don't think I would have been okay if I didn't know what to do."

"Just don't try to tell him what to do too much," Tyler told her with a smirk. "He pushed me in the pond once."

She stared at him open-mouthed and then burst into giggles. "That's because you're a boy," she decided. "I tell him how things are all the time."

"No, it's because I tried to tell him he was wrong and he got mad."

She shook her head. "No, I tell him he's wrong plenty. He just knows he can't lie to me because I _know_ it."

"I don't think he thought he was lying," Tyler told her. "But he was _wrong._ "

Charlie laughed again and patted Tyler's arm. "He's wrong more than he thinks he is. So it's probably okay to get thrown in the lake if it means he hears it."

"He didn't," Tyler said. "And I got him in too."

"Well, I don't think I can do _that_ ," Charlie giggled. "He's too heavy."

Annie shook her head at the pair of them before she put her hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Come on, let's catch up to your dad and your brother before they take all of the good pancakes."


	4. Little Purple Sassbox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH HI. I had no good way to update while I was out and about, so ... HAVE TWO CHAPTERS.

Krissy was already starting to wake up when she heard the knock at the door, but she let her dad get it, because she was still tired from yesterday. But when she heard that it was Chance and Elin at the door, she got up and called out to them that she would be right there before she hurried to get dressed.

She poked her head out of her room when she was done to see that Chance was still telling Elin something about how his foot didn't feel any different and was this what it felt like when Tyler fixed up her arm?

"Did you guys have to go see Tyler?" she asked as she made her way over, readjusting her headband in her hair as she did.

Chance grinned. "He fixed me and my dad up," he explained. "And he made sure Elin was okay after she got hit, because you know, sometimes you can't see where it hurts." He nodded sagely before offering his arm to both of the girls. "K's making breakfast."

Krissy grinned at him. "Alright," she said as she slid onto his other side, and the three kids walked downstairs together, with Chance suggesting different things that they could play depending on if the girls wanted to stay inside or not.

Of course, they ended up getting down to breakfast at the same time as the rest of Krissy's family, since Kurt teleported down with them and the bamfs.

"G'morning, K!" Chance called out, since both girls were a bit quieter than usual.

"Hey sweetheart," K called back. "Do you feel like my lingonberries or do you just want boring old strawberries?"

"Can I have both?" he asked as he let go of Krissy and Elin's arms to pull out two chairs for them, like his mom had taught him.

"Of course," she told him as he set both him and Elin up with their breakfasts and then looked at Krissy expectantly.

"Both please," Krissy said, her tail swishing behind her.

"What about whipped cream?" K asked her. "You look like you might need some."

"Yes, please," she said, quietly climbing up on the other side of Elin and scooting closer to her best friend as K loaded her up.

"Can I steal some of those for Kade?" Kate asked with a smile as she sat down by Krissy with a very awake little elfling.

"I think it's long overdue," K agreed. "For the lingonberries anyhow. Poor mistreated little guy."

Kate rolled her eyes. "He's going through a growth spurt. Eats everything I put in front of him," she explained as Kade accentuated the point by trying to gum the heck out of her shirt.

"Teeth time," K said, shaking her head.

"Oh yeah," Kate agreed.

"He's growing up good," Kaleb said, grinning as he watched Kade with his chin on the table. "Mama says he's gonna be tall if he keeps growing all the time like that."

"Your mama's right," K said before she looked up at Kate. "And what does mama need? I might even be able to spare some blueberries if you're in dire need."

Kate chuckled. "Oh, let's save those for an emergency," she said. "Just the berries and cream, please and thank you."

"No coffee, Mom? Are you feeling ill?"

Kate laughed. "And coffee too."

"Mama's tired," Kari said. "She's forgetting coffee, and that's _important_."

K was chuckling as she headed to fill up Kate's plate when Kade got a little upset and tired of gumming Kate's shirt. Kate wasn't fast enough giving him something else to chew on, clearly, and his swishing tail hit Krissy's orange juice and spilled it all over her lap.

And then — _bamf_. Krissy was across the kitchen, looking surprised herself at her new position.

For just a beat, there was stunned silence from those in the kitchen who hadn't been at Azazel's hideout — and then Kari let out a little squeaking sort of noise that sounded excited.

"Come on, sweetheart; let's dry you off," K told her, perfectly calmly — as if it could happen to anyone at any time. "It was just a little spill."

"Krissy 'ported!" Kaleb sang out, grinning widely as he climbed up in his seat to try and see her better as his big sister looked mortified.

"When did she start?" Scott asked after a beat, addressing Kurt, since he was one of the few people who _didn't_ look surprised.

"Last night," Kurt explained in a low whisper while K gently helped Krissy get the orange juice out. "Azazel had a hold of her, and she 'ported away as soon as she got any distance." He paused and looked prouder. "Along with Kade."

"She did perfectly," K said, making sure to give Krissy a kiss on the cheek once she was cleaned up.

"I didn't mean to," Krissy said quietly.

"Doesn't make what you did any less perfect," K swore. "You saved your little brother."

"And it's so. Cool," Chance said, giving Krissy a thumbs-up.

Krissy looked between them for a moment and turned a slightly darker purple before she nodded. "It is pretty cool," she had to admit. "It feels kinda funny. Different than when Papa does it."

"You'll get the hang of it," K promised before she poured her a new glass of juice and handed it to her.

Krissy grinned up at K and murmured a little 'thank you' before she went back to her seat with her new glass — which she set on the side away from Kade, who was wearing more of the cream and berries than had managed to make it into his mouth.

"Your smoke is different than your dad's and the bamfs," Chance said when she sat down, leaning over to see her better. "How come?"

"Because I'm purple," she said with a shrug. "So that's what color my smoke is."

Chance tipped his head to the side. "Okay," he said slowly before he went back to his pancakes.

"The kids all had a big night then," Scott said, shaking his head at the three of them. "Chance kicked him in the face, and Elin got the drop on him with her sword."

"Oh?" Kurt turned toward Elin, clearly interested. "That's impressive, Elin. Even I have trouble doing that at times — especially with him."

"I didn't get him in the right spot," she said critically, with an oh-too-familiar glare.

Kurt shook his head and leaned forward. "I didn't get him in the right spot either — for a long time. Not until last night, anyway."

She let out a breath and nodded to herself. "Good."

"Besides," Kurt said, smiling gently at her. "You slowed him down. And that was very helpful to us when we confronted him. You helped us to save Krissy and Kade, _schatzi_."

"If you say so," she muttered.

But that had Kurt narrowing his eyes before he teleported to her and swept her up right out of her chair. "Now, you listen to me, Elin Anika," he told her as he pulled her into a spinning hug and then held her there. "You have done _wonderful_ things that no one else your age can do. Not the way you do them. You are _eight_ , _schtazi_. You are not required to be perfect, or even to fight evil, and yet you do so all the same. Now stop requiring more of yourself than you have any right to ask — or so help me, I will hold your father personally responsible," he added over her shoulder, glaring at Logan.

"But I got Chance and Scott hurt," she whispered.

"You did _not_ ," Scott said seriously. "You know what he was capable of — do you really think he would have left anyone alone? You made sure we were awake so we could stop anything _worse_ from happening. You did _exactly_ what you're supposed to do."

"You didn't get me hurt," Chance promised, watching Elin like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. " _I_ know who hurt me. I was _there_. Duh."

"No," Logan said, shaking his head even as Kurt was giving him a look that clearly read that he was going to make Logan suffer if this wasn't fixed — and _now_. "Come on; we need a chat about this, little darlin'. And everything else you've got wrong about this too." He walked over to where Kurt was and plucked the little girl out of Kurt's arms and looked at Kurt for a moment. "I take it you want to come and play preacher and choir."

Kurt simply gestured with one hand. "I just want to see that my goddaughter is healthy and _happy_. You know that."

"Right," Logan muttered as he headed off to quieter grounds to chat with Elin, even as she held on tighter to him. They went down to his office, and he didn't even set her down to talk with her. "You're a little off on this one, punkin'," he told her quietly. "You did more than kids your age should ever do, and I wouldn't be surprised if you _hadn't_ , he probably would have done more than just _hurt_ Chance and Scott."

Elin let out a breath and looked like she might cry before she wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled in. The truth was the kid was still shaken from getting dropped into the ocean, so to have the monster come back that fast and show up where she was sleeping was a whole lot for her to deal with, even without all the other crap that went with it.

"And that's not all," Logan told her in a hushed tone, quiet enough that anyone else trying to listen simply wouldn't hear. "You need to tell the truth about what you can do now, too. There is no reason to hide it, and it might help you get used to everything faster."

Elin didn't want to answer that, though. Instead, she snuggled in deeper and Logan held her tight until she was ready to go.

When the two of them finally did make their way back to where the others were, Krissy was quick to wave Elin over with a big smile. "Did you have a good talk with your dad?" she asked kindly. "Sometimes it helps to talk to my dad too. He's gonna help me with my powers now, which is pretty cool, right?"

Elin glanced over at Logan and nodded. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea," she said softly. "It will be fun, I think." She started pushing the last of her berries around on her plate. "Maybe we can all work together …"

"Of course we can!" Krissy promised. "That's what friends do."

"And we already take classes together," Chance pointed out.

"And…" Krissy leaned forward with a spark of trouble in her gaze. "Mama says this means I can beat Sying racing once I learn how to do it on purpose."

"Good," Elin said, brushing it off suddenly. "He needs it."

Chance grinned at Elin. "Krissy said she wanted to play inside today. Do you want to play, too? We were going to get a game of Rook going if we can."

"Okay," she agreed. "That might be fun." With that, the little girl seemed to put it all behind her — for the time being anyhow — as Logan simply shook his head at her, already having decided that she needed to tell people about coming into her mutation herself.

* * *

"Don't think so hard, _liebling_ ," Kurt said gently. He was crouched down in front of Krissy watching as she screwed her entire face up with her hands in little balls trying to _make_ herself teleport across the room to where Kate was. "You aren't going to get anywhere trying to turn your face to sandpaper."

Krissy let out a frustrated sigh and peeked one eye open to see that Kurt was still there, watching her patiently. "It's _hard_ ," she complained.

"So was archery at first, but you love it now," Kate pointed out.

Krissy sighed with her entire upper body, getting her shoulders involved as well as she rolled her eyes. "Alright," she said, trying to do as Kurt had suggested and let herself relax even a little bit, though that was hard as well. She had been _scared_ the first time she did it — and surprised the second — and she was pretty sure that the whole thing was just a fluke and she was never going to figure out her powers, since they had been standing there for _forever_ without even a hint of purple smoke.

"Don't think so much about trying to leave," Kurt explained as Krissy closed her eyes again, this time not quite so scrunched up. "Just think about where you want to be."

"I _am_ ," Krissy said, sounding purely frustrated before, finally, she let out her breath and shook her head. "I don't think this is working."

"It's alright, Krissy. You don't have to get it right away," Kate promised as she got up and made her way over to hug the frustrated little girl. "Remember how long it took you to be able to hit a target?"

"And it took me a long time to be able to use my powers as well," Kurt said, reaching over to gently boop her nose. "And I was older than you are now."

"That's because boys take forever to grow up," Kate sang out, and Krissy couldn't help but giggle, especially when Kurt didn't contradict her in the least but simply shrugged at the suggestion as if it was common knowledge.

"We can try again tomorrow, _liebling_ ," Kurt promised, pulling her into a hug before he kissed her cheek, and the three Wagners headed out of the practice room they had been using together.

However, they hadn't fully made it down the hallway before one of the doors to the side classrooms opened, and Chance jumped out at Krissy with a loud "boo!" that had her squealing in surprise and terror for a split second before Chance got a face full of brimstone-scented purple smoke for his antics — and Krissy ended up on the far end of the hall, positively fuming at him.

" _Chance_!" She had her hands on her hips as the little boy fell apart in giggles, holding onto his stomach, while Kate and Kurt stepped slightly back to see how Krissy would handle this herself. "What did you do that for?"

"Because it's funny!" He grinned at her. "Your tail stood straight up!"

Krissy stalked over to where Chance was and put her finger in his face. "It's. Not. Funny."

"Hey, Elves don't have a monopoly on jokes and sneaking up on people and scaring them," Chance said. "Anyone can do that." He grinned. "And I'm _way_ sneakier than you are."

"You are _not_."

"Oh yeah?" Chance drew himself up to his full height, which was a few inches taller than Krissy. "Prove it. I bet you can't get the drop on me."

"And what do I get when I win?" Krissy asked, drawing herself up just as tall as she could to match him as Kate tried valiantly not to laugh at the familiar scene — and Kurt was simply covering his mouth because he'd lost that battle long ago.

Chance considered her for a moment before he nodded slowly. "Respect."

Krissy raised her finger to stick it in his face again. "You… _ugh_!" She spun on her heel and flicked her tail in his face as she stormed away.

"Does that mean I win by default?" he called after her, still grinning, and she let out a noise that was pure frustration that had him grinning even wider.

"Be nice," Kate said, shaking her head at the little Summers.

"I _am_ nice," he replied. "It's just _teasing_. I hold the door open and pull out chairs."

"And antagonize little elflings," Kurt said, though he was still unsuccessfully trying to hide the laughter at Krissy's pure Kate-like reaction to the challenge.

Chance shrugged widely. "All my friends are girls," he said in explanation. "And they're all competitive. Even Charlie. So…"

"So you figure you'll get the drop on them first," Kate laughed outright.

He shrugged again but didn't deny it. "And it really is funny when her tail goes straight up."

"It is," Kate said. "But it's still not nice to scare people."

"I know," Chance said, finally looking a little abashed at his behavior.

"And you know, as soon as she can teleport, it will be _much_ easier for her to get the drop on you," Kate continued.

"But not yet," Chance pointed out with a crooked smile before he rushed off down the hall after Krissy, leaving Kate and Kurt simply shaking their heads.


	5. Sometimes It's Easier To Hide

Meanwhile, Logan and K had taken up working with Elin on how to put her newly cranked-up senses to good use, since theirs was not an ability that owned an off switch.

It looked to most of the residents of the institute like they were simply going out into the woods — not unusual for them to do on any given day anyhow. But once they were out there, she was learning how to track using only her senses, since she already knew about the visual cues that she could find. It was easy enough — following one of her parent's scent trails — and in short order, she was starting to feel a little better about sorting out the different scents, though the now highly acute hearing was still sensitive enough to make her jump.

There was, after all, a whole lot of sensory overload in the institute with every single person there with their own individual scent, and all those teenagers being loud, so going out into the cold fresh air and being able to isolate the scents and escape the _noise_ …

"Okay, this is kind of cool," Elin said when they started to head back to the house. "Maybe I'll talk to Uncle Scott first …"

"If that's what you want to do, then do it your way," K told her. "He'll be glad to hear it when you tell him."

She scrunched up her nose and rubbed it with the back of her hand. They had just started to cover the fact that different emotions and changes in body chemistry had an impact on what someone smelled like, and after lunch, before they went outside, it was proven to be true when Elin was sitting next to Kaleb when he snatched a cookie from Krissy and then _lied_ about it to his sister when she asked where it went. It had smelled funny, and although Elin didn't see him do it, she was still looking at him with a frown until he admitted it.

But before she could get to Scott, she had to go through the hall — and the smoke and brimstone was still thick in the air. She barely got into it, though, when she stopped dead and covered half of her face before she turned tail and ran the other way, right into Logan.

"Hold your breath," he told her quietly as he rested his hand on her shoulder. "Until you can learn to ignore it, just hold your breath."

It took her a few moments to get over the shock of it before she did just that and rushed down the hall until she got to Scott's office and knocked once. "I know he's in there," she said quietly, hoping that it would be safe to take a breath that far down the hall.

When he called out for them to come in, she gave her dad a look and pushed the door open, barely peeking inside to see if he was alone. "I can come back if you're busy …"

"No, come on in," Scott said with a little smile. "I'm going cross-eyed reading essays anyway. I could use the break."

She let out her breath and stepped in, with Logan right behind her, though Elin led the charge and dropped down in the seat across from Scott, one hand on each armrest like she was going in for trouble. She wasn't even kicking her feet like she usually did.

Scott tipped his head slightly and glanced to Logan for just a moment before he leaned in a little closer and frowned. "What's up?"

She shifted in her seat and just spit it out at once. "I'm healing now. And all my senses are all … high."

Scott broke into a grin. "Elin, that's great!" he said. "When?"

"After I got dropped in the ocean," she said quietly.

Scott's smile slipped slightly at her answer, but he shook his head. "Well, I'm sorry it happened that way," he told her. "But, Elin, that's seriously amazing news." He got up from his seat and slid around the desk to crouch by her seat and pull her into a hug. "How're you feeling?"

"I dunno," she muttered into his shoulder. "Kinda like hiding."

He hugged her a little tighter. "Yeah, Charlie felt that way too. It can be overwhelming when you can't turn it off, huh?"

"Yeah," she said. "But Mom and Dad are going to teach me how to ignore it."

He nodded and let her go a bit, still with one hand on her shoulder. "You're a quick study; you'll get it in no time. I mean, look at how fast you've been getting languages, right?"

"Maybe," she said, frowning. "It's different than that. And it smells funny when people _lie._ Even little ones."

"Yeah. Well, you'll get it faster than me," he promised. "You can ask your dad; I was pretty old before I got my powers down."

"And if I don't, then I can just … go hide."

"If you don't, we'll figure something out," Scott said. "Like the glasses I used to wear." He ran his hand over her hair gently. "You just do what you can, at your own pace. That's the whole point of this school, right?"

"I guess so," she said, frowning to herself. "Do I have to tell everyone else?"

He shook his head lightly. "No, you don't have to," he said slowly. "But I'm sure your friends would want to celebrate with you." He smirked. "Charlie would love to have someone to hide from people with, I'll bet."

"Maybe I'll tell her then," Elin said, frowning a little deeper. "I don't really want to celebrate."

"Why not?" Scott asked, his head tipped to the side.

"I just don't," she replied.

Scott nodded thoughtfully. "Alright. You don't have to, then. But I'll just bet your friends will still want to know so they can be happy for you." He smirked. "Charlie keeps telling me we could use a little more happy around here, huh?"

"Probably," she said, nodding finally. "I think I'll go find Charlie now." She gave him another quick hug before she took a few steps back and did the same with her dad before she ran out of the door.

* * *

Charlie was tucked up in the hayloft of the barn doing her homework that afternoon. She wasn't necessarily overwhelmed — but she had come close over the past two days with the wash of _intense_ emotions related not only to Azazel's attack and death but to Krissy getting her powers.

Meditation helped her to keep from getting too caught up in all of that, but if she wanted a place to _concentrate_ and get things _done_ … well. Just being able to find her calm center wasn't going to cut it.

She was glad that she was still being homeschooled by her mom with the other kids, even if everyone was at different levels, and even though next year there were going to be a _whole_ lot of Kindergarteners. Though with Krissy's evil grandfather gone, and Logan's Sabretooth problem taken care of, maybe the kids would be able to go back to school. _Normal_ school.

Charlie was just a little bit jealous. She didn't know if she'd be able to go back to school, not the way her powers were at the moment, anyway. She still didn't do well with strangers.

But that was a while away still. In the meantime, Charlie was focusing on getting through fourth grade, and the hay loft was the perfect place to do that.

So, she was tucked away with some multiplication problems when she heard the door open and peeked over the edge of the loft. She had known who it was immediately, of course. Elin's emotions had a sort of mellow tone to them, like a French horn. "Are you looking for a place to hide too?" she asked. She wasn't _trying_ to pry, but Elin seemed nervous, and a little scared and upset, though Charlie wasn't sure if that was from everything that had happened lately or something else.

She suspected it was something else, because Elin's emotional state had shifted in the past day or so… but that was the one drawback of her powers. She didn't know _why_ people felt the way they did; she only knew _what_ they were feeling.

"You can join me if you want," Charlie said when Elin seemed to hesitate in the doorway, then pulled her head back from the edge, re-stacking her books so that all her things wouldn't be in Elin's way.

"I don't want to mess up your studying," Elin told her. "I was just hiding, really."

"That's fine; you can hide here," Charlie promised. "Hiding is quiet, right? It won't bother my studying."

"No, it's just that I know…." Elin let out a sigh. "I know you need 'quiet', too."

Charlie tipped her head to the side and then smiled quietly. "It's alright," she promised. "Just one person is usually okay, unless you're having, like, a temper tantrum or something." She smirked. "You're not gonna have one of those, are you?"

"Um, _no_ ," she replied.

Charlie giggled and waved Elin over. "You don't have to be nervous, you know. It's just _me_."

Elin slowly made her way over. "I know. I'm just tired of everyone being so _stupid._ "

"I don't know what to tell you. I've tried, I really have, but nobody listens to me when I tell them that either," Charlie said with a small smile.

"At least Krissy's not scared all the time," Elin muttered.

"Yeah, she and her whole family were really nervous for a long time," Charlie said.

"It's worse than the brimstone," Elin said quietly, entirely to herself.

"You don't like the teleporting?" Charlie asked, her full attention on Elin now as she concentrated on her friend.

"Not as much anymore," Elin admitted, sitting nearby, but not too close as she tried to maintain a little personal space.

"Is it because of Krissy's grandfather?" Charlie asked, then held up a hand. "I'm sorry if that's scary or something to ask. I just know what you're feeling, not _why_."

"That was scary, but that's not it," she replied. "And besides, I stabbed him."

"Yeah, you did," Charlie said, grinning. "Chance won't shut up about it. About how you're _brave_ and all that, and you know what?" She leaned forward. "I know how scared you were, so he's not exactly wrong."

She pulled her knees up to her chest. "Sorry if I woke you up like that."

Charlie waved her hand. "It's not your fault," she promised. "I had to get used to that — learning that people can have emotions and they don't mean anything against _me_ by it. But I learned that from Remy pretty well."

"Except when they _lie_ ," Elin argued.

"Well, that's totally different," Charlie agreed. She pulled a face. "They get all… weird."

"And they're afraid they're going to get caught," Elin said with a nod.

Charlie nodded, grinning at Elin. "Exactly! Most people don't get that, but I can hear it when it happens."

Elin shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, shrinking in on herself more. "So. Krissy's not alone with new abilities," she said very quietly.

Charlie's eyes widened, and she let out a soft " _ohhh_." She started to grin. "That makes _so_ much more sense now!"

"I don't want to tell anyone," Elin said quickly.

"I won't tell if you don't want me to," Charlie promised just as quickly. "I _hate_ it when people feel betrayed, and I don't want to do that to you. It's not a fun feeling."

"My dad and mom and James and your dad know," she said. "And Tyler. But I think he'll stay quiet."

"He won't tell anyone," Charlie agreed. "But he _does_ live with my big sister, and she's nosy sometimes." She quickly held up her hands. "She won't _tell,_ though. She made me promise that I wouldn't tell on people with my powers, like she doesn't tell on people's thoughts."

"I know; Rachel is nice about that," Elin agreed.

"But you're not gonna tell anyone else?" Charlie asked with one eyebrow raised. "Not Krissy? I mean, I'm glad you told me, but I thought she's your best friend…"

Elin frowned and held her breath for a moment. "She is … but she has a lot of stuff happening, and I don't want to _celebrate_ anything. I didn't _do_ anything, and I'm not … very happy about it."

"Alright," Charlie said, sitting back against a bale of hay. "Well, I'm glad you told me. That explains a lot of why you've been kind of nervous lately."

"It's hard to be around everyone," Elin told her in a rush. "Everyone smells different, and they're all … they have secrets and lies, and I just don't like it."

Charlie looked taken aback for a moment before she very slowly started to nod. "That's how it was for me," she said quietly. "Everyone was so… _loud_. And confused. And have way too many things going on at once."

"I don't know how my mom and dad can stand it," Elin whispered.

"You'll get used to it," Charlie promised. "Your dad's been showing me meditation, and after a while, it's less… sharp. More background noise."

"Yeah, but I have to get outside more now just to clear my nose out," she told her. "And they're all so _loud._ "

"Okay." Charlie nodded. "You can come out here whenever, and if you don't want people to know why, you can just say you're coming to see me. It's not _really_ a lie, and I don't mind sharing."

"Alright, but if I'm bothering you, you have to tell me," Elin said.

"Same to you," Charlie said, nodding. "I'm sure I don't smell good when I get overwhelmed."

"Scared is the worst. It smells like ammonia," Elin told her. "Overwhelmed is more like … a spike before a big shift."

"Yeah, scared is the worst for me too," Charlie said. "Scared _sounds_ like the moment before a chord resolves, and it's all dissonant, but it just… keeps going."

Elin pulled a face at that and shook her head hard. "No thank you."

Charlie giggled. "Well, neither of us are scared right now, so we don't have to deal with that," she said. She rooted in her backpack for a moment before she came up with one of her favorite books, a Nancy Drew with the cover bent from overuse.

"Oh, that's not what I was coming up here for," Elin told her before she got up and headed over to a far corner of the barn where there looked like there was a door in the wall. She pulled out a blanket and shook it out and brought it back over. "I was going to _try_ to sleep, but it's a little chilly out here."

"Yeah, well, it's winter," Charlie said, holding up her hands so Elin could see the heat packets she had. "But if you can't sleep, you can read anything you want. I collect books."

"Okay," she agreed before she offered Charlie part of the blanket. "Mom keeps a few out here."

Charlie smiled and slid over to sit closer to Elin. "Thanks, Elin. I'm glad you're up here with me."


	6. Sying Catches Up

When Sying arrived the next day for the weekly class that Logan was running with the older kids, he was a little worried about his friends — because he'd been actively eavesdropping, and he wasn't really sorry. He wanted to know why Elin and Krissy had disappeared and why everyone had been so upset, so he knew that Krissy's grandfather had shown up again and tried to hurt his friends.

He also knew from listening to Storm that Azazel wasn't going to bother anyone ever again — but he still wanted to make sure that his friends were okay.

So when he got to class, he made sure to ask if his dad could bring him a little bit early. That way, he could hug Elin and then Krissy when she and Kari got there too.

"I heard about how your grandpa came to the beach," he told Krissy when he hugged her. "Are you okay?"

Krissy looked surprised for a second and then a little bit upset, so he almost immediately regretted asking her about it, but then she quickly shook her head and held up both hands. "I'm okay _now_ ," she said. "I get to sleep in Mama and Papa's room right now."

"Yeah?" he asked carefully.

"Well." She bit her lip. "It was kind of scary, so it helps to see Papa when I get scared at night."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that makes sense. Ael was like that a little bit when he first came home with us. He liked being in the same room as Mom and Dad so he could be sure they're not going anywhere."

"Yeah," Krissy said with a little shrug before she grabbed Sying's arm and started to pull him back toward the rest of the kids. "It's okay, though. It's all done now, and now my papa's been teaching me how to teleport, even though I'm not very good at it yet, so—"

"Wait." Sying pulled himself to a stop, and since Krissy was holding onto his arm, he stopped her too. " _What_?"

Krissy let go of his arm and then gave him a look that said she didn't believe he didn't know. "I thought you said you _knew_ stuff."

"I didn't know _that_ stuff!" Sying said, wide-eyed. "What… when did that happen?"

Krissy shrugged the slightest bit. "When all the other stuff happened."

"That's not a really helpful answer."

"Well, that's when it happened," Krissy insisted. "I was trying to get away from him and then — poof!"

Sying stared at Krissy for a moment before he broke into a huge grin and grabbed her and hugged her. "That's so exciting!" he told her. "You're gonna be the coolest X-Man ever."

"Who said I was gonna be an X-Man?" she shot back.

"Well, aren't you gonna be?" he asked, letting go of the hug and looking downright surprised. He'd thought, seeing as she was practicing with her bow and learning swords with her dad…

"Well, yeah, but not right _now_. Duh." Krissy rolled her eyes at Sying.

"You're gonna be amazing when you get older," Sying promised, grinning widely.

Krissy shrugged. "Maybe. I don't think I'm very good at it, though."

Sying raised both eyebrows. "Really?"

"I can't teleport on purpose yet," she admitted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she continued to chew on her bottom lip.

By that time, Chance had made his way over to the conversation as well, and he looked curious for a moment before he realized what the conversation was about. "Yeah, it works better if you scare her," he said, grinning.

"It does _not_ ," Krissy said, spinning on her heel to shove Chance in the shoulder.

Chance grinned. "Okay, but I can get you to teleport…"

Sying looked between his two friends with his nose scrunched up. "How come _you_ can make her teleport?"

"Cause he jumped out and scares me like a _Wahnsinnige_."

"He's being a goober," Elin said. "And he wants someone to scare _him_."

Chance grinned over at Elin. "Hey, it _works_. And nobody's scared me yet."

"It's not nice to _make_ someone use their abilities," Elin told him. "And just you wait if you want to be scared."

He tipped his head to the side, then slowly grinned at her and laughed. "Okay, Elin."

"It sounds like I missed a _lot_ ," Sying said, shaking his head as he watched his three friends.

"Yeah, well, it was a really, _really_ crazy couple of days," Krissy told him, pulling him with her to a good space where they could stretch out for their class. "But you're all caught up now!"

"Yeah." He shook his head. "I miss _everything._ "

"Well, you live far away," Krissy said, patting his arm consolingly. "But that's okay. You get to help your little brother learn English and all about Earth! That's pretty cool. You gotta take care of your little brother." She nodded and leaned forward. "That's how come I 'ported. Me and Kade were in trouble."

"You 'ported with your brother?" he asked, eyes wide.

She nodded. "I didn't _mean_ to, though."

"Well," Sying said as he thought it over, "that makes sense. You're a good big sister."

Krissy grinned delightedly and then leaned forward with a twinkle in her eyes. "And Mama said this means you're not gonna be faster than me anymore."

"Krissy, your mom is _so_ wrong," Sying said, shaking his head.

"No way," Krissy insisted, grinning even wider. "How you gonna beat me if I can get there in a poof?"

"I can get places in a blink."

She shook her head at him. "Just you wait."

"She's right," Elin agreed. "She'll beat you, hands down. Because Uncle Kurt can beat Noh. Just like she can beat you in a square race right now."

Sying stuck his tongue out at Elin. "It depends on how long the race is," he pointed out.

"In the room, you have no chance," she told him with a grin. "I don't know about Chance, though. That might be a real race."

Sying stuck his chin out. "I've been _practicing_ with the powers off."

"Good. Then you shouldn't be a sourpuss anymore," she teased before she gave him a broad smile.

"I'm not a sourpuss; I'm just saying that you can't say things are one way if you don't have all the variables," Sying said with a little sniff. "Like how far the race is or if it's in the room or not. I could win a short race even with Krissy 'porting, 'cause it takes a second for her to 'port."

Elin sighed. "Just admit you can't always be the fastest and this will go a lot quicker for everyone."

Sying rolled his eyes at her and went back to stretching.

Charlie shook her head as she waved Elin over. "Boys get mad over dumb things," she whispered.

"Daddy says they're already posturing, whatever that means," Elin whispered back.

"I don't know what that means either, but it sounds right," Charlie agreed before the kids started to split up for the lesson itself. She waved at Elin as she went to partner with Cody — since she and Krissy switched off who was paired with Sying every week. He _was_ getting better, but he got frustrated easily, so Charlie didn't like to partner with him and feel like she made him frustrated later when the powers came on and she could feel it.

Chance and Elin partnered together whenever there was a lesson — though Elin and James were together when it was just them practicing with their dad. And that meant James partnered with Kari — since he was the only one of the kids who could hold up to her hard hits and didn't mind that she was slower than the others, just rougher.

Of course, that also meant that Kari was horrified with herself when she _did_ miss James' sticks and hit his fingers instead. "Oh _no_!" she said, immediately covering her mouth with one hand and dropping a stick.

James had both of his sticks in one hand as he shook his hand out hard. "It's okay," he told her.

"That's gotta _hurt_. I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay," James promised, though he looked pale. "I'm fine, see?" He held up his hand, with his fingers spread out, flexing them for a moment. "You just need to watch where you're hitting, that's all."

"Are you sure?" Kari asked, shaking her head.

He nodded his head with a little 'mmmhmmm' before he situated himself and held up the little wooden staves again.

By the time the lesson was over, though, that was the only real slip-up. It was actually a great lesson for everyone involved — even Elin was enjoying herself more than usual. So the kids were all in great moods as they put away their things and headed out.

Sying stayed behind, grinning quietly as he waited for Logan, who was looking over James' hand — Kari had hit him harder than James let on and his fingers were turning a black-blue.

"You alright, kiddo, or did you take a hit that I missed?" Logan asked.

Sying shook his head. "No, I didn't get hit," he said. "I just wanna show you something that my dad and I have been working on." He grinned. "I can do it with the powers turned off, too."

"Great, let's see it," Logan said after he gave James a stern look and sent him on his way to have Hank check him over.

Sying nodded before he almost skipped over to where the cooler of water bottles was so he could scoop up a couple ice packs, one in either hand, and rush back over to Logan. He held out his hands with the ice packs in them and then grinned. "See? I don't feel it. 'Cause it's not a power; it's my brain."

"Nifty trick," Logan said. "But does it do anything other than let you get more hurt?"

Sying frowned. "Well, Dad said to only use it if I _need_ to," he admitted. "But — but you said I need to know things I can do if my powers are off, right?"

"Yep, but I don't want to see either one of you knuckleheads using that if you can help it," Logan pointed out.

Sying's frown deepened, and he set down the ice packs to rub his hands on his pants.

"It's a good trick," Logan told him as he ruffled his hair. "But you shouldn't use that if there's any way to avoid it."

Sying kicked the ground a bit but nodded. "Yeah, okay," he said quietly. "I just wanted to show you. So I can be an X-Man later."

Logan pulled him over to his side. "Don't be in a rush. You'll get there."

Sying shrugged. "I'm working really hard," he said. "I work with you, and with Dad, and with Mom, and you just keep saying no."

"Because you're too young, and you're not ready."

"I'd be readier if I had more lessons," he grumbled. "All the other kids are here _all_ the time."

"You're keeping pace with them," Logan pointed out. "And they don't get extra lessons. Usually."

Sying glanced up at Logan and let out a sigh. "Okay," he said slowly before he tipped his head to the side. "It's still a really hard trick to learn," he told him. "I worked _really_ hard on it."

"I'll bet it is," Logan agreed. "Anything like that is. Elin's not looking forward to learning how to use her claws, and that'll take time too."

"Well," Sying said slowly, "I can't make claws on my fingers like my dad can, but I can maybe help Elin when she learns other things?" He looked hopeful. "I've been learning how to work on my powers since as long as I can remember."

"It'll be a little different for her," Logan told him.

"Okay." Sying nodded. "But I still want to help. She's my family. And I can help James too if you want! And Sadie when she grows up."

"We'll see how it goes," Logan replied. "Tell me, is Krissy still hitting back right?"

"I think so," Sying said, though he paused to think about it. "I think so… why?"

"Just askin'," Logan said with a shrug.

"Is it because of her powers? Because she told me about them, and I didn't think teleporting could mess with how hard or how good you hit, but if you think it can…"

"Oh, it absolutely does," Logan deadpanned, just to get a rise out of Kurt.

Kurt gave him a dry look from across the room. " _Lächerlich._ "

"Makes 'em overly sensitive too."

"Well, Krissy said she can't teleport on purpose yet, so maybe it's just not _yet_ ," Sying reasoned, perfectly serious as he considered it — though it was almost like a cue for Krissy to appear in the middle of the room in a cloud of purple, her cheeks flushed a deeper purplish red than usual and her hands balled into fists.

"Oooh," she ground out through her teeth before she rushed back toward the door, clearly meaning to tell someone off.

"Exhibit 'B'," Logan muttered, mostly for Noh, who had watched the lesson with a proud expression on his face at Sying's progress.

"And what, exactly, is Exhibit 'A'?"

"The one with the twitching tail," Logan said without looking Kurt's way.

"You shouldn't tell your grandchildren such lies," Kurt said smoothly as he went after Krissy.

"You are so irritated right now," Logan called out to Kurt before he turned to Elin. "Isn't he?" She simply agreed, nodding slowly before she and Charlie started giggling over something.

In the meantime, Krissy had marched herself right out to the door again to find that Chance wasn't even bothering to hide from her wrath, grinning as she came storming out. "You did that on _purpose_."

"Well, _yeah_ ," Chance giggled out. "It was hilarious! Your tail was straight out!"

"It's not funny!" she insisted. "You're just… you're just a _boy_!"

"What's wrong with being a boy?" he asked, grinning widely.

She stuck her chin out at him. "You're just bein' mean for fun, and that _isn't nice_."

"Well, _you_ said you were going to get me back, and you haven't yet," Chance pointed out. "Maybe you just _can't_ get me back."

"That is not how you're supposed to flirt," James said as he made his way closer to them. "Just be nice and kiss her already."

Both Chance and Krissy spun around to face James, who looked as if this was a perfectly normal conclusion to come to, and Chance opened and closed his mouth a few times. " _No_ ," he said at last.

"Krissy, Mom will teach you how to make him stop if he keeps being mean. She already showed Elin," James said, flat ignoring Chance's shocked expression.

"I can do it myself," Krissy said with a sniff, though when Chance sang 'no you can't' under his breath, she spun around and glared at him before shoving him in the shoulder. "Aww, who asked you?"

"He's been getting his way too much," James whispered to her before he raised his voice to a more normal tone. "And it's _not_ funny."

"What's going on out here?" Annie asked as she came around the corner. She'd been expecting to meet up with the group of happy post-class kids, but instead, it looked like Krissy was furious and James was standing by her against Chance. And to make matters worse for Chance, Scott was there too, just behind Annie and taking in the little scene.

"Nothing," Chance said quickly. "We're just messing around."

"Chance," Scott said in a tone that meant he was about to get in trouble.

"I'm just — I just … Krissy teleports if you scare her," Chance tried to explain. "And it's kinda funny."

"It's not," Krissy muttered under her breath, mostly to James, but she wasn't about to tattle, either.

But she didn't really need to when both Annie and Scott were putting it together. "What on _earth_ makes you think it's alright to pick on someone?" Annie asked, sounding totally appalled. "We don't have _bullies_ in this family!"

Chance looked visibly taken aback and hurt. "I'm not—"

"You apologize to Krissy right this instant," Annie said, her eyes flashing. "And then we're going to talk about your behavior."

It was obvious from Annie's tone that he was in trouble — especially considering the fact that it was Annie giving him an earful and not Scott. And Chance knew it. He scuffed his foot against the ground for a moment before he glanced up at Krissy. "Sorry for scaring you," he muttered.

"It wasn't funny," Krissy grumbled his way.

Chance scuffed the ground again, but with both Scott and Annie giving him a severe look in stereo, he let out a breath and nodded. "It wasn't funny, and I'm sorry."

With that, Annie nodded once and then motioned Chance toward the hallway that would lead upstairs. "Now march, mister. We're not through here," she said, which had Chance visibly wilting as he dragged his feet all the way back to their suite.

"Come on, Krissy," James said quietly. "Let's go get some ice cream. Your high kick was really good today."

"Really?" Krissy brightened instantly. "I've been working hard on it."

"Yep, you got a lot higher than last time," he told her, nodding as they headed down the hall together.


	7. Tell The Truth

Krissy was still having a hard time teleporting. She hadn't been able to do it since Chance's parents made him stop scaring her — and she would absolutely hit anyone who said so, but she kind of wished someone would scare her just so she could check and make sure it still _worked_ , because it really felt like it just… wasn't.

But Kurt promised her that it was perfectly alright and that it was harder to do it when she was trying to than it was otherwise. She thought he might just be playing it down for her, but he was her dad, and that's what he was supposed to do.

She had been working on teleporting for what felt like forever but what was actually just a couple of weeks now, and she was at the end of her rope as Kurt tried to find a way to let her see what it was that she needed to do.

"You have to really _want_ to be where you are going," Kurt said for what felt like the five gazillionth time, and Krissy let out a long sigh.

"I _know_ ," she said, frowning as she tried once again to teleport — and, once again, nothing happened.

"You have to want it for yourself," Kurt said gently. "Not for me, or for your mama, or for your friends or your teachers."

"I _know_."

Kurt let out a sigh and rested a hand on Krissy's shoulder. "Perhaps we should take a break for a moment."

"No, no," Krissy said quickly, pushing his hand off her shoulder. "I can do it. I'm not gonna _quit_."

Kurt nodded at that, trying not to smile too widely at her determination — since Krissy had already accused him of making fun of her when he really was just proud of how hard she was working. "Alright, _liebling_. Why don't you try to think of somewhere else to teleport?" He gestured across the room to where Kari and Kaleb were coloring. "Maybe you could join your brother and sister playing."

Krissy nodded, but even when she closed her eyes, she was sure that this wasn't going to work either. She didn't _really_ want to play with her siblings, and she especially didn't want to accidentally step on their drawings. What she really wanted to do was learn how to teleport so she could go upstairs where Chance was and scare him silly even though it was mean. But it would be so worth it.

She was just trying to figure out if he was done with homework yet, because if he wasn't, he was probably in the dining room… or maybe the living room. She scrunched her nose up and decided he was probably in the living room, and — _bamf_.

The next thing she knew, she was standing in the middle of the living room in a cloud of purple smoke — and Chance was there working on spelling and had dropped his pencil. "HA!" she said, hands on her hips and feeling particularly proud of herself.

"You — you teleported!" Chance managed to get out, trying to recover and look like he hadn't been startled. "That's awesome, Krissy."

Elin hadn't startled at the sound, especially since Kurt and the bamfs popped in and out of her family's quarters nearly as often as they were in their own, and she was pretty immune to it, but it was already a hard kind of night since Tommy was working on something in the kitchen that he'd told her was 'traditional' when she'd scrunched her nose up at the heavy onion scents pouring out of the pot.

So the brimstone that close was just too much, and without meaning to, she held her breath and scrunched up, her nose buried in her shoulder before she got up and quickly left the room.

Krissy had caught the little motion, though, and she frowned for only a moment before she went running after her friend. "Ellie, wait!"

"I just gotta get outside," Elin called back, nearly running for the back door. "But you totally scared Chance!"

Krissy giggled at that as she followed her friend out the back way. "I did," she agreed. "Are you okay, though? Your nose… are you… having nose issues?"

Elin looked almost scared for a moment before she let out a big breath. "Kind of … I'm fine."

"Are you getting your powers?" Krissy asked, her eyes wide. "Papa says sometimes they come slow…"

"Um … not _getting._ "

At that, Krissy broke into a _huge_ smile. "That's so cool! We both got our powers now!"

"Don't say it so loud," Elin said.

"Oh… I'm sorry," Krissy covered her mouth. "Am I hurting your ears?"

"That's not … no." Elin shook her head and watched Krissy for a moment. "I don't want to tell everyone."

"Why not?" Krissy asked. "Everyone's been real nice and helpful with me — and with Charlie!"

But Elin didn't have a very good answer for her and instead ended up just kicking the stones underfoot.

"You should at least tell Scott," Krissy said. "Because he's in charge of the school stuff."

"I did," she said quietly.

"And probably my dad," Krissy continued. "Because he's your godfather, and he likes to brag on you," she said, grinning a little wider.

"I don't _want_ anyone bragging about me," she told her. "I didn't _do anything._ "

Krissy shrugged. "That's not really the point," she said. "My papa brags on me when I get taller or older, but I didn't do anything. He just likes to be happy for people."

Before Elin could try to explain herself any further — or come up with a solid argument that Krissy might listen to — there was another _bamf_ , and Kurt appeared nearby, looking both relieved and proud to have found Krissy. " _There_ you are," he said as he rushed over. "Is this where you decided to go instead?" he teased lightly.

"Well, I went to the living room first, but then Elin didn't like the smoke, so we went outside for fresh air," Krissy explained.

"It was just … hard with whatever Tommy's making," Elin said quickly. "I don't think I like Polish food."

Kurt raised an eyebrow as he crouched to Elin's eye level. "You've never had trouble trying new things, _schatzi_ ," he said carefully. "Has something changed?"

Her shoulders scrunched up halfway to her ears. "I've never had to smell Tommy's cooking before."

"Yes, well, he's trying something new," Kurt said, though he was still watching Elin carefully. "Elin… how long has this been going on?"

"Maybe for a while?" Elin said quietly. "It doesn't really matter."

"And you've been trying to deal with it on your own?" he asked, looking honestly concerned.

Elin shook her head. "No … mom and dad have been helping me for a while now."

Kurt's mouth opened for a moment before he closed it again and shook his head. "Well, I'm glad they've been helping you at least. But you should tell people when things like this happen, _schatzi_."

"I don't _want_ to."

"Did it occur to you that it would have been easier for you if I and my bamfs — and Krissy — _knew_ that you were struggling with the smell of brimstone? Hmm?" Kurt asked with one eyebrow raised. "You must learn to let people _help_ you, Elin."

"It's okay," she replied, quieter than before. "I don't want to mess anything up for anyone else."

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Kurt insisted, making sure to look her in the eyes. "I _want_ to help you. I don't mind a small pause in teleporting as often as I usually do if it means that my beautiful goddaughter is more comfortable. In fact, it makes me _happy_ to know I'm helping you."

"I toldja he'd be proud," Krissy whispered with a little crooked grin.

Elin shot her a look that was entirely reminiscent of her father, but she didn't want to argue any of it. She just wanted to be alone. "Are you going to tell everyone?" she asked. "Because Mom and Dad and Scott said I didn't have to until I was ready."

Kurt watched her for a moment. "No," he said slowly, "but _you_ should. Your friends and your family deserve to know these things."

"That's what Dad said," she grumbled.

"Well, when your father and I agree, it usually means we're more right than usual," Kurt said with a little smirk.

"Mom says you two share a brain," Elin told him. "And that since you're boys, you _can't_ be right as much as you think you are."

"Your mother is a smart woman. But I think even she'd agree that we are right on occasion," Kurt said, still smirking. "And more than she gives us credit for."

Elin let out a sigh. "Everyone that needs to know _does_ ," she defended.

"And who is making that decision?" Kurt asked. "Are you saying that your friends don't _need_ to know — or that they don't deserve to know?"

She narrowed her eyes at his phrasing. "I … don't like that question."

"Because you know they deserve to know," he pointed out. "Do you like it when your friends keep secrets from you?"

"If they don't feel good about sharing then, yes."

"And tell me, Elin, do you feel good about hiding this part of yourself from your friends and family?"

"Not exactly," she said quietly.

"Then I think you already know what you are supposed to be doing," Kurt said gently.

"Go hide?" she answered.

He shook his head and then pulled her into a hug. "No — you should _tell_ your friends the truth so that you do not feel so bad," he said. "It will only feel worse the longer you let it fester. You need to learn how to face this, Elin, or you will spend far too much of your life hiding when life throws its changes at you."

" _Fine_ ," Elin said through her teeth.

"I'll go with you if you want," Krissy offered.

Elin looked up at Kurt and then nodded at Krissy. "Charlie already knows."

For a moment, Krissy looked totally betrayed. "You told her first?"

"Not really," Elin said. "We were talking about what lies smell like to me and feel like to her."

"But… I'm your best friend! And I tell you everything," Krissy said, still looking hurt.

"I didn't wanna tell _anyone_ ," Elin told her, looking miserable.

Krissy pushed out her lower lip for a moment but still grabbed Elin's hand to hold. "Well, you're still my best friend," she said. "Even if you hurt my feelings."

"I wasn't trying to," Elin said, softer this time.

"You better not, 'cause if you were, I don't think we could be friends anymore," Krissy told her honestly as she halfway pulled Elin with her back through the back door.

"Are you guys okay?" Chance asked when he saw the girls come back. "You ran off…"

"I needed some air," Elin said quietly, though she didn't look any better.

"Are you feeling sick?" Chance asked, looking even more concerned.

"I just wanna go to bed," Elin told him, and Krissy elbowed her in the side.

"Oh, okay. Well. If you don't feel good, I can get crackers to bring you instead of the stuff Tommy's making for Erik," Chance offered. "That's what my mom does when I'm sick."

"No thank you," Elin answered.

"She's _not sick_ ," Krissy said, shaking her head at Elin.

"Oh." Chance frowned. "Did you get hurt? You don't look like you're okay."

"She's just being a Chicken Hawk," Krissy sang out.

"Whatever, Hawkcrawler," Elin said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, if _you're_ gonna chicken out, then _I'm_ gonna tell," Krissy said. "Because you _said_ you were gonna. You shouldn't _lie_." She was practically sing-song at this point. "Chicken Hawk."

" _Don't_ ," Elin said from between her teeth.

"Umm." Chance looked between the two girls with a frown. "What… the heck."

Elin glared at Krissy hard. "I don't care what _names_ you wanna call me," Elin growled out before she started stalking out of the room.

"She's gonna chicken out," Krissy said, shaking her head at Chance. "She's _supposed_ to be telling people that she has her powers now, but she's too scared to because she knows it was _mean_ to not tell us." She rolled her eyes. "So she's a Chicken Hawk."

Chance stared at Krissy with his mouth slightly parted. "...what?"

"That's what I said. She's got her powers now, and she didn't tell anybody, so now she's running away instead of fessing up like a grown-up," Krissy sniffed.

"She…" Chance looked between the door and Krissy for a moment before he took off running to try and catch up to Elin, sure that she was headed up to her room like she'd said, though he caught her in the hallway instead and rushed over to grab her by the arm. "How come… when did… Elin!" he panted. She didn't have an answer to any of the half questions he was trying to ask, and she was just so _upset_ that all she could do was just start to cry, which had Chance even more wide-eyed as he tried to find some way to make her feel better. He hugged her tight and frowned. "Do you … um. Do you need… maybe … something?" he asked, stumbling over his words. "I can get it. Or… hugs…. or … something."

Elin shook her head and tried to get herself together. She didn't _like_ any of this, and she was thinking more and more like she should just stay in bed if she could. Especially if Krissy was going to _bust her out_ before she was ready.

Chance kept on hugging her because he didn't know what else to do until she seemed like she was starting to get a hold of herself a little more, and he let her go and cleared his throat. "So. Um. Congratulations, by the way."

"No."

"No?" He scrunched up his nose. "I don't… what's going on?"

"I didn't wanna tell anyone yet," she told him.

"So… you don't want me to be happy until you say so?"

"Why would you be happy about it?" Elin asked with a frown.

He shrugged. "Well, it's like… Sying got his powers, and your dad told him he's not ready, so it's not fair if you guys have to wait and don't get as much practice as him and Charlie, right? I mean, _I_ already got all my stuff figured out…"

She blinked a few times and shook her head. "I can't turn anything off," she pointed out. "Ever."

"Neither can Charlie," he said. "Not right now, anyway. And neither can Sying. You get what you get, right? That's what my dad and everyone keeps saying."

"I'm just … you're not mad at me?"

"No!" He quickly shook his head. "Why would I be mad?"

"I don't know. You were mad for a while when they got rid of the evil grampa, and when Charlie got her empathy… and you've been picking on Krissy a _lot,_ and I don't … _._ "

Chance shook his head. "No way. I wouldn't pick on you," he swore. "Krissy's…" He shrugged. "That's different, and I already got in trouble for it. I just … thought it was funny when she did the Halloween cat impersonation. And your dad makes fun of Kurt for it all the time, so I know it _is_ funny…"

"But he doesn't make him _do it_ all the time," Elin pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, Mom read me the riot act," Chance said. He took a deep breath. "I'm not gonna do it anymore, I promise. And I was only mad before because…. Well, it was _Charlie_. She's my sister. She's my _twin_ sister. We do everything together, you know?"

"She needs more hugs," Elin told him.

"Then I'll give her more hugs," Chance promised. He tipped his head to the side. "Are you mad at me?"

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"Even though I've been picking on Krissy?" Chance asked.

"I know you got yelled at," she said. "I heard a lot of it."

Chance shifted guiltily. "Yeah. I did." He paused. "Umm. What… did you hear?"

"Enough to know that your dad didn't get more than a word or two in," she said.

He looked even more guilty. "Yeah… Mom wants us to be raised up with good manners," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "And it's not good manners to pick on people." He let his shoulders slump. "Even if the grownups pick on each other all the time."

Elin took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Charlie knew for a while now. And your dad," she told him. "Krissy got mad at me because she wasn't first …"

"Oh. Well." Chance frowned as he thought it over. "Well, Charlie has her powers. And Dad runs the school." He glanced over at Elin. "I'm not _mad_. I just… I wish I knew, that's all. I'm sorry you thought I was gonna pick on you."

"It's okay," she told him. "I just … don't like any of this."

"Yeah, Charlie doesn't like hers either," Chance said, nodding. He paused and seemed to consider something. "And you can't tell anybody, but I don't think my dad likes his either."

"Everyone thinks it makes everything easier, but _nothing_ is easy now," she told him.

He frowned at her for a moment before he nodded to himself and then stepped forward and gave her a tiny kiss.

She looked shocked as she stared at him. "What was that for?"

He blushed. "Um. You looked sad," he explained. "So I thought maybe…" He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I should have asked."

She gave him a hesitant smile. "Thank you," she told him, still smiling a little.

"You wanna go hit something?" he offered, starting to grin now that she was looking better. "That helped me when I was sad about not having powers. Maybe it works in reverse too."

"Dad hasn't really let me hit much outside of the room with the inhibitor," she told him.

"Well, it can't hurt to ask, right?" he asked. "It really does help. And if he says no, we can do something else, like ride horses or go outside in the snow or something."

She thought about it for a long while. "What about a movie?" she suggested. "I'm still tired and I wanted to just go to sleep before Krissy got all … pushy."

"One movie, coming right up," he said, grinning as he led the way to where the movies were stashed.


	8. Joy And Loss

The day after Valentine's Day, the mansion had a couple of visitors, and they were announced not by coming up the driveway, or flying in, or calling ahead, or any number of other ways that the group was used to. Instead, Charlie had picked up on the _serious_ uptick in the levels of joy in the area, and it put _her_ in a grand mood as well, grinning to herself as she munched on some leftover Valentine's candy.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" Chance asked as he hopped up next to his sister, a chocolate bar in his hand and wearing a curious expression on his face.

"You'll see," Charlie sang happily, with a know-it-all sort of smirk that it got her brother to hit her in the arm with a little glare.

"Fine, keep your secrets," Chance said, sticking his tongue out at her.

She rolled her eyes at him. "It's _not_ a secret. You just have to be patient for a few minutes, you goofball."

Chance fixed her with his best smile for that one, and she shoved him in the shoulder, shaking her head at him.

But for the rest of the mansion residents, the new visitors soon showed themselves on the front doorstep: a widely grinning Peter Parker, along with Sara and May. Sara was holding onto Peter's arm with a smile that was almost as wide as his, and May looked as though Christmas had come early.

Of course, when the doorbell rang, Krissy was the one to call out, "I got it!" and teleported to the entryway. Now that she was starting to get the hang of teleporting, she loved the excuse to go anywhere in an instant. As long as Elin wasn't around, she was teleporting to get the mail, to go to class, to answer the door — any excuse she could come up with. Though she was trying to limit the smoke where she knew Elin was going to be.

"Hey, Krissy," Peter said when she opened the door just as the smoke was clearing. "Are the Howletts home?"

Krissy nodded, grinning up at the three people on the front doorstep as she stepped back to let them in. "It's a Friday, so Logan's done with his class in a little bit," she told him. "If you want, you can wait in the living room. Or you can have hot chocolate. It's really snowy out there." She pointed toward the snow they had come through to get there — it wasn't actively snowing, but there was several inches on the ground.

"That sounds great," Sara said with a smile, still holding tightly onto Peter's arm with one hand as she ruffled Krissy's hair with the other.

Krissy followed the two of them back to the kitchen, where Charlie waved at the newcomers with a knowing smile. "Do you wanna talk to my dad or someone else?" Charlie called out. "Because whatever it is, you're real happy about it."

"Well, yeah, we're gonna want to tell your dad too," Peter said with a slowly growing smile.

"And mine too?" Krissy asked.

"Yours too," Sarah said, and for some reason, that made her smile even wider.

"I can get him," Krissy offered with a bright smile, disappearing in a poof of purple.

"Oh, hey, I didn't know she was doing that," Peter said, blinking in sudden surprise. "I mean… isn't it usually blue?"

"It's _Krissy_ ," Chance said, shaking his head at Peter. "Everything's purple with Krissy."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Peter said with a smirk.

But before Chance could get too involved in telling Peter about how Krissy teleported in purple smoke _everywhere_ lately — and he had definitely meant to — K came in from her riding class after an afternoon spent breaking through snow drifts on the trail.

"K!" Peter said, grinning as he waved her over. "Hey, d'you think we could borrow Sadie for a little bit? And you and Logan?"

Unlike the kids, K seemed to catch on a lot faster to what was going on — especially the way Sara was hanging on Peter with her winter gloves still on and the way May looked so _proud_. She didn't say anything about it, though, instead quietly smirking to herself. "I don't see why not. Sadie should be playing with Kaleb and Chloe," she said.

"I bet if you wait two seconds, Krissy will offer to get her too," Chance muttered with a little smirk.

"Oh, be nice. She's excited to get the hang of it," Charlie said, shoving her brother.

"I _am_ nice. I'm just saying she'll want to help!" Chance said, quickly holding up both of his hands.

"Uh-huh," Charlie said, completely unconvinced and with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I'm not _picking_ on her. She teleports just as much as her dad does."

"I didn't say you were _picking_ on her."

Chance wrinkled his nose at Charlie. "Have you been talking to James?" he demanded.

"No, why?"

"No reason," he said.

But Charlie giggled at that. "Aww, Chance. You don't have to be embarrassed."

He stuck his finger out at her. "Stop it."

"I'm not _telling_ anything," she sang out happily, which had Chance glaring at her.

And that was, of course, when Annie walked in, chatting easily with Erik about something or other, probably related to the school, though no one was able to determine what it was because Annie stopped when she saw the serious glare that Chance was giving his sister and shook her head at him. "Chance…"

"I'm being _nice_!" he said, holding up both hands and sounding totally exasperated, because of course as soon as his sister was making him mad, _that_ was when his mom showed up, not before when she was teasing him. He didn't _want_ Charlie to tell anybody that he thought Krissy was pretty, because… well. He also thought Elin was pretty and smart and brave.

It was really confusing for one ten-year-old to handle, and it really wasn't helped by his sister threatening to bust him out all the time.

"He's being a boy," Charlie said. "He can't help it."

Annie raised an eyebrow at Charlie for that one. "Chance…"

"How come being a boy gets me in _trouble_?" Chance lamented, putting his head down on the table as he muttered. "I'm not _doing_ anything."

"He's really not," Charlie allowed at last when it looked like Annie might start getting onto Chance and reminding him that he was supposed to be playing nice with the other kids.

Erik smirked as he sat down between Chance and May and gently patted Chance on the shoulder. When the little boy let out a noise of frustration, Erik smirked a bit wider before he turned to May, removing his hand from Chance's shoulder to place it on her arm.

"It seems like things have been busy around here," May said, resting her hand on top of his with a smile.

"They always are," Erik agreed, matching her smile.

Finally, _finally_ , Krissy arrived with Kurt — and with Logan as well. Logan had been in the hallway when Krissy caught up to her dad, and when Krissy mentioned that Peter was there and had asked for him, it only took a second for Kurt to get all three of them to the kitchen, about the same time K had returned with Sadie in tow.

"Spidey!" Sadie let out a little squeal and rushed over to that she could climb into his lap and wrap him up in a hug — and then do the same for Sara.

"Hiya, Sadie," Peter said, pulling her tight so he could kiss the top of her head. "You wanna know something cool?"

She leaned forward until she was touching noses with him. "What?"

Peter started laughing and then shared a little smile with Sara before looking toward the adults in the room — and Charlie — who couldn't help but smirk as well, knowing exactly what was coming by this point. Sara gently pulled her gloves off of her hands by the tips of the fingers and then wiggled her fingers, showing off the diamond engagement ring there.

"We're getting married," Peter explained, mostly for the benefit of anyone who wasn't sitting close enough to see the ring up close — and for a few of the kids.

There was only a beat before the flood of congratulations came pouring in from everybody — starting of course with Sadie giving Peter the biggest hug ever and going from there as everyone present got in on it and the bamfs began kidnapping anyone who wasn't there to bring them in, even though Tommy was in the middle of his math class and Kate was still holding a couple practice arrows she had been picking up. Scott looked like he was in the middle of grading papers — and quickly pocketed the tiny stress ball he'd been turning over in his hands while doing so.

Logan pulled Peter into a tight bear hug, clapping him on the back a little harder than Peter thought was necessary. "Congrats, Petey," Logan said in a tone just softer than his normal speaking volume before he dropped his voice even quieter. "It's about damn time."

"Do you have a date set yet?" Annie asked curiously.

"Do you have an officiant?" Kurt asked, clearly thinking that this was the more important question.

Sara couldn't help but smile at that question in particular. "Would you?" she asked sweetly.

Kurt simply broke into a huge grin and then went into a deep bow. "It would be my pleasure, of course."

"Of course," Peter said, shaking his head at Kurt's dramatics before he turned to Sadie with a far more important question. He tipped his head down to catch Sadie's gaze. "Hey, Sadie, do you think you'd want to help with the wedding?" When she nodded slowly, he grinned. "Great. You wanna be flower girl?"

Her eyes widened and she looked between Peter and Sara. " _Really_?" She asked. "You want _me_ to throw flowers? On purpose?" Sadie looked up at her father, and when Logan simply nodded, she broke into a wide grin. "Please!"

While Peter and Sara were wrapped up in Sadie, Erik had taken a moment to lean over to May. "Congratulations to you as well," he told her quietly and with a small smile. "You must be proud."

"Oh, absolutely," May said, her tone fervent and bright at the same time. "All I want is for Peter to be happy; I'm just glad I get to see it."

"He's a wonderful young man," Erik agreed.

"I know," May said, watching Peter rub noses with Sadie surrounded by all of his friends offering their congratulations. "I raised him."

* * *

The heavy February snow was starting to thaw a bit, one of those early March mornings where spring reared its head experimentally before it would inevitably cool off again. So when Annie heard Scott starting to wake up, she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back before he could get too far.

Scott chuckled lightly as he let her pull him back, but he didn't argue as she rested her head between his shoulder blades with a little smile. "Good morning," he said, and she smiled and kissed his shoulder.

"It is," she agreed, snuggling in a bit closer.

The truth of the matter was that so many of the "big" problems had been dealt with recently that, well, these lazy sort of days, even the "normal" school days with all their hectic back and forth were becoming the norm. And Annie was going to take advantage of that as much as possible, because she knew from experience that there was no guarantee it was going to last.

Eventually, though, they could hear the kids starting to get up — Cody was giggling about something or other, and Chloe came to knock on the door with a very tired expression, clutching her favorite teddy bear as she climbed up next to Scott to ask him to make Cody stop being so _loud_ and waking her up.

"And… so it begins," Annie muttered lightly to herself, shaking her head as she sat up and watched Chloe pull Scott into the hall so he could correct Cody's behavior.

By the time the Summers family got down to breakfast, Chloe was riding on Scott's shoulders while Charlie seemed to be convinced that Cody and Chance were always in trouble simply for the fact that they were boys.

"No, honey," Annie said, stepping in when Chance looked like he couldn't let that comment pass him by. "You and Chloe get in trouble for breaking rules too."

"You just don't get in trouble because all you do is _read_ ," Chance said, sticking his tongue out at Charlie.

"I like reading," she said with a little shrug, clearly not seeing the problem here.

"Yes, we _know_ ," Cody said, getting a sharp look from Annie before he sank his head down and shrugged his shoulders up.

But it didn't take long before the kids were all laughs and smiles again once the sugary cereal got going. And with the promise of a Saturday morning Disney movie, they were trying to be on their best behavior so they could pick out a favorite.

And with Krissy determined to answer the doorbell by teleporting over every time with an "I'll get it!", nobody thought much of someone stopping by to visit until Krissy brought him in with her with a little, "See, toldja I knew where he was."

"You sure did," Peter Quill said, though he looked a little more stressed than he usually did as he looked around the kitchen and gave them a one-handed wave. "Hello. Everyone … ever, apparently."

"Hey, Peterquill!" Cody called out. "Are you gonna watch a movie with us? Mom can make extra popcorn, and you can sit with me if you want."

"Ah, maybe next time, little man," Quill called back. "I kinda came to talk to your _dad._ "

"Oh, okay," Cody said, while Charlie was watching him carefully.

"Are you in trouble?" she asked bluntly.

"Me? No," Quill replied, shaking his head seriously. "No… no way." He looked over at Scott. "Maybe this should be a little more private."

"Sure; what do you need?" Scott asked as he put Chloe down off his shoulders and was already headed for the door to go to the War Room. The two of them walked down the hall in silence, though Quill was awkwardly trying _not_ to look too anxious the whole way.

When the crowd was well behind them, Quill finally spoke up. "Just curious … how close are you with the rest of your family, like ... the other Summers-es."

"Is Alex in trouble?"

"What? No," Quill said, holding both hands out in front of himself. "No, no, no ... nothing like that. Besides, I'm pretty sure you'd hear about that before me."

Scott watched Quill for a second with a slight frown, though he had to nod his agreement. "I don't know," he said with a small smirk. "It depends on how much trouble and if Lorna got involved. The whole west coast might know…" He shook his head as he held open the door of the War Room. "So if he's not in trouble, then what's going on?"

Quill let out a sigh. "I thought it best if I came in person — didn't seem like a phone call kind of thing — but this is about Corsair."

Scott frowned. "What did he do?"

"No," Quill said, shaking his head. "It doesn't … no. I just got word from Yandu, and they thought I'd get the message to you quickest, but... Corsair is dead."

Scott stared at Quill for a long moment. "...how?" he finally asked, frowning hard.

"The way I understand it, it was an execution from the Shi'ar," Quill told him. "But it's a confirmed one this time. I know you've heard this before, but this was from Yandu." Quill watched him for a moment. "I'm sorry, but I … needed to make sure you got the message the best way I could think of, and I didn't want to just … call."

"Right, no, thank you," Scott said, nodding a bit. "I'm… glad you told me."

"Hey, it had to be done, right? If you need anything ... "

"Do I need to—" Scott paused and shook his head to reorient himself. "I mean, if the Shi'ar executed him, there wouldn't be anything to take home."

"Yeah, I doubt there's anything … I mean. I don't even know what the charge was."

"There's a laundry list," Scott said with the ghost of a smirk.

"Right, well, you know if you wanted to do something like hijack a Shi'ar something or another, I wouldn't say no to lending out the _Milano_."

"That's… Do you know if the Starjammers are planning anything or…"

"That would indicate that the Starjammers know _how_ to plan anything at all. Even a step ahead."

Scott smirked. "Right. Well." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Do you know where they finally caught up to him?" he asked after a long pause.

"Yeah, Yandu knows it pretty well," Quill said, nodding. "What are you thinking?"

"If there wasn't a body, maybe there's _something_ there," Scott said, nodding to himself as he thought it over.

"Say the word," Quill told him. "I kinda needed to catch up with Yandu anyhow, so it wouldn't be any trouble at all."

"Alright, let me just… tell Annie," Scott said as he got to his feet, still not sure how he felt about the whole thing.

"I'll go talk to Kitty," Quill said.

"I'll ask Kurt if he can give us a lift to Chicago," Scott decided. "We can pick up your ship from there; no reason for you to make the trip three times."

"Oh, alright then," Quill agreed, following Scott a step behind all the way back to the kitchen.

By that time, the kids had all gone off with their popcorn bowls and blankets to watch their movie, so thankfully, the only ones there were adults — except for Kade, of course, who was sitting with Kate in the corner discovering how much he did _not_ like bananas.

Scott pulled Annie aside, and the two of them ducked into the hallway for a quiet chat as Scott explained to her what was going on.

"What'd you do?" Logan asked Quill, still sitting there with his paper and coffee.

"I didn't — hey, I didn't do anything here."

"Yeah, right," Logan said, shaking his head. "Come on. What's the story? What'd you say to send Slim off lookin' so serious?"

"What, you really think _I'd_ do something serious enough for — look, don't answer that. I didn't do anything; I'm just … the messenger here, really. Got some news from Yandu I thought he needed to hear in person, that's all."

"More crap from the Shi'ar?" Logan asked. "Someone steal your toy wagon?"

"Umm. Yes, actually — on the Shi'ar. Only it's a little more than a toy wagon," Quill said, then scrubbed a hand through his hair and shook his head. "They caught up with Corsair about a week ago. Executed him the next day. Not pretty."

"Oh," Logan said, letting out a breath and leaning further back into his chair. "Not as bad as it could have been."

Quill looked incredulous. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure I broke the guy…"

Logan started to chuckle as he picked his paper up. "No you didn't."

"You're going to give me whiplash," Quill grumbled as he sat down and poured himself some of the remaining coffee. "First I'm in trouble for sending him off, now it's fine. You're going to have to pick one."

"You really want me to?" Logan challenged, glaring at him over the top of his newspaper.

"Preferably pick the one that doesn't involve stabbing me?"

"I don't _have_ an option like that," Logan said.

Quill frowned for a second before he pulled his coffee slightly closer to himself and shook his head. "Right. Well. Anyway, we're taking the _Milano_ , see what we can recover—"

"Great. When are we leavin'?" Logan asked, simply continuing on as if this was the norm.

"Did… did I invite you on this crazy train or am I missing something?" Quill asked.

"You're headed into Shi'ar territory without enough backup. I'm goin'."

"You remember I used to run the Guardians, right? This is the kind of thing I used to do all the time? I'm pretty sure me and the leader of the X-Men got it covered between us."

"Yeah, not impressed," Logan said in a bored tone. "Besides, I'm goin' for Scooter. Not you."

"Huh." Quill tipped his head to the side for a second before he decided he didn't want to try and parse that anymore and went back to the coffee — which was always better in Westchester because K made it.

When Scott came back in a short time later, he went right to Kurt "We need a ride to Chicago to pick up Quill's ship," he said, then glanced toward Logan. "You alright to leave K and the kids for a week or two?"

"Sure," Logan said. "When're we leavin'?"

"Pack your bag," Scott replied.

"On the way," Logan said as he and Kurt headed upstairs in a poof of smoke.

* * *

The guys had been gone for less than a week, and by some miracle of organization, everything was running smoothly in Westchester. K had taken over for Logan's classes, which meant she was slightly busier, but not unmanageably so. The kids, however, were missing their father — and all three of them had taken to curling up with their mother at night, which was helping her out too, though they didn't need to know it.

But the really fun part of the scenario was the simple fact that the ladies had _time_ every afternoon to sit down for coffee while the little kids took a break from school and the bigger kids went to their other core classes — English, Science, all mysteriously scheduled so that if the three missing X-Men had their heads on straight, they could spend the time as a group as the women were doing now.

It only made it more interesting when Jessica brought Gerry in to be part of Kurt's play, too. Billy and Teddy were running things while Kurt was gone, and since Gerry _knew_ them from their time on the Avengers with his mom, he was hamming it up more than usual just to get them to laugh at him.

"So when are you taking over for Scott?" K asked Natasha as the ladies were all hanging out together.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," Natasha laughed. "I just come in and clean things up, let _him_ deal with papers and all that."

"I think that's a good way to handle things," K agreed before she pushed the coffee toward Jessica.

"Besides," Jessica said, grinning as she took the coffee. "I need her around."

"What for?" K asked.

"Clint management," Jessica said with a smirk. "She's an expert, and we _do_ have to deal with him on the team…"

"But … she'll bring him with — and then Kate can get over her withdrawal symptoms," K pointed out.

"Kate's a grown woman. Gerry would pitch a fit if his dad moved away, even just to Westchester."

"He could come here …"

"He's only turning eleven next week; I don't think he's ready for the school that's putting out X-Men," Jessica said.

"Krissy's eight and she's already learning," Kate pointed out. "Charlie's probably going to be one of the regular students soon, too."

"I already know I can't argue anything here," K said, shaking her head.

"Besides, Gerry's not old enough to be that far from home for so long," Jess said. "He's been having nightmares, sleeping in my room lately. He thinks he's haunted."

"Too many late-night movies?" K asked.

"Probably," Jess said. "When you live in the Tower and Tony Stark has his movie collection uploaded to the screens… Thank God he's got parental lock on at least _some_ of it."

"It's probably just a phase," Kate said. "Krissy still sleeps in our room sometimes after the run-in with the monster in law."

"I've got all three in with me right now," K said, shrugging. "They don't like it when Dad's gone."

"I didn't think Gerry was a horror buff, though," Kate said as she leaned back in her seat.

"No," Jess admitted. "But I think he's seen enough with the Avengers living in his house." She leaned back. "You know how it is. Kids pick up on weird things."

"Well, when your evil grandfather kidnaps you…" Kate pointed out. "Krissy doesn't really like to talk about it, but maybe he picked up parts of the story from her?"

"That's probably it," Jess agreed.

"That boy is too sweet for stories like that," Natasha said, then shook her head.

"Biased, because he's like his father," K muttered Natasha's way.

"And?"

"Just you and saying those words — 'too sweet' — is too sweet."

Natasha rolled her eyes at that. "It's an observation. And true."

"Best Stepmother Ever," K sang her way.

Natasha smirked. "Obviously."

"Krissy and Kari love you," Kate chuckled.

"James likes Scott better," K deadpanned.

"This is not a discussion of uncles," Natasha said. "And if it was, mine would be the best. Obviously."

"I thought I'd compare and contrast," she replied. "Sensitivity … high."

"In defense of my little uncle? Yes."

"I will not argue with you on that," K promised. "It's no secret that I'm _incredibly_ biased on my sweetheart."

"And here I thought we were putting away the rulers when we set up shop in here the four of us girls," Kate muttered to Jess, who smirked.

At that, there was a knock at the door, and Jana shouldered in. She'd come down for the week from campus because she wanted to help out — put in her time on the squad and anything else that they might need — and was holding her phone with one hand with an intel readout on it. "So… there's a mutant up by Windsor who probably needs picking up."

"Seriously? I thought that area was cool now," K muttered.

"Well, apparently, she can control insects, and that's not exactly … I mean. Unseasonable army of bugs," Jana said, reading the intel with a frown.

"Oooooh, dangerous Canadian insects …." K said, shaking her head. "I'll ask Annie if she's okay with the little ones. Shouldn't take more than an hour or two."

"I can pitch in where you need me," Jana offered. "I can fly… and I can babysit."

"Well, do you want to start a daycare or be an X-Man? Let's go," K replied. "Who's going to go start some crap with me?"

"Now that is something we can agree on," Natasha said as she got to her feet.

"I mean … let's … go run a mission," K corrected.

"Oh no; you were right the first time," Jess said with a smirk. "I don't think I've been on one of these before."

K waited just long enough to get the text back from Annie before she nodded to the girls and started toward the hangar. "You coming, Kate? She said she'd go ahead and suffer through holding the baby."

"Oh, what a hero," Kate said with a little laugh. "I could use the run. Need to get back out there."

"Sorry Jana; Kate's flying," K called out.

"You can co-pilot," Kate offered with a smile. "Good practice for when you join the team."

Jana grinned delightedly as she followed the women down to the hangar to pick up a jet and head out.

The flight was short, of course, and when they got to the little neighborhood just outside of town, there wasn't really any sign of trouble — short of the hundreds of fireflies in the window of one house. The ladies made their way over, and as they did, there were a few people in their windows that closed the blinds quickly and seemed to be ducking for cover.

"Ah, the friendly faces of Canada," K sang out. "So welcoming."

"Well, we are quite the intimidating group," Natasha said with a self-satisfied smirk.

"Pretty girls in tight clothes should not have the hide-in-your-house reaction," K argued.

"Mmm." Natasha smirked. "You must not be doing it right."

"There they go again," Jess said, elbowing Kate in the side as Kate snorted.

"You know I have no reason to even _try,_ " K teased. "One Canadian is quite enough, thanks." She turned to Jana. "You want to try playing welcoming committee?"

Jana grinned. "Might be fun," she said before striding up to the door to knock lightly — and to try not to grimace at the fact that there were a few more bugs at the door as well that seemed to think her hand was the perfect landing spot. "We're not here to hurt you," she called out when there wasn't a response from inside. "I promise."

"Come on," K told her quietly. "The others can wait outside — we'll find her."

Jana nodded as K let them in, and they found a little girl, close to Gerry's age, watching the two of them as a group of fireflies blinked and swooped around her in almost a dance.

"Oh, that's so cool," K said, smiling at the glowing insects. "Fireflies in the winter."

The girl nodded lightly. "That's why I brought them inside," she explained quietly.

"You'd love it out west," K told her. "They come up out of the tall grass much thicker than anything around here." She nudged Jana in the side with her elbow and gave her a significant look.

Jana glanced her way for a second and then looked back to the little girl. "We've got a lot of fireflies in the forest by the Xavier's Institute," she said, cautiously approaching the little girl. "Have you ever heard of it? Or the X-Men?"

The girl nodded quietly.

"Do you think you'd like to see the school?" Jana offered. "Nobody there will think you're weird. We all have different powers." She smiled. "In fact, I bet some of the teachers' kids would love to be able to catch fireflies with you. They love having a good campfire and catching fireflies."

The girl watched Jana for a moment. "And s'mores?" she asked with a sly sort of smile.

"Yeah, that too," Jana said, nodding.

"Do you have any parents?" K asked.

She nodded. "My dad," she said. "He's at work… I'm supposed to be at school…"

"Why aren't you?" K asked her as she took a seat, cross-legged near the little girl.

"I ran away," she said. "Because the other kids were scared of my bugs."

"Sounds like you have some pretty wimpy kids in your class," K pointed out. "Who's afraid of fireflies?"

The girl shrugged. "I guess."

"Do you want me to talk to your dad?" K offered.

"I can show you where he works," she said. "He's a mechanic." She smiled. "We work on cars together."

K nodded and offered the girl her hand to shake. "I'm K, and this is Jana," she told her.

"I'm Veronica," the girl said as she gently shook K's hand. She looked between the two of them for a moment. "Are you _really_ X-Men?'

"Yes," K told her with a little smirk. "And we brought another X-Man and two Avengers that needed some fresh air too."

"Oh, wow, really?" Veronica asked, her eyes wide.

"It looked like there might be trouble in the area," Jana said. "Has there been a lot of picking on mutants here?"

Veronica thought about it for a moment and nodded slowly. "I guess so," she said. "My dad usually says not to listen to 'em, though, so I don't. So I don't really know. It makes my dad mad to talk about it."

"Can you give me his number?" K asked. "It might be better to warn him before we show up."

Veronica giggled and nodded. "Yeah, I don't think he is expecting _Avengers_ and _X-Men_ to come over," she agreed as she punched her dad's number into K's phone.

"I'll be right back," K promised with a wink as she took a few steps off into the next room to chat with him and explain what they knew. He sounded surprised at first that Veronica was in any trouble but then quickly agreed with K that he wanted to make sure she stayed out of it — and learn how to keep her bugs from swarming and scaring anybody, including herself.

By the time it was all said and done, Veronica was fairly well attached to Jana — especially when she learned that Jana was friends with Amazon. She wanted to know all about the girls and about the Avengers and X-Men as they made their way down from where she lived, to where her dad was waiting to meet up with them, probably a bit surprised to see the three X-Men and two Avengers just for his little girl.

K had barely finished making the arrangements with Veronica's father when another player showed up, and all of them were more than a little surprised when Mac Hudson tried to simply walk in and take over.

"Hey Mac," K said, before he could get too far into it. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Mac grinned for a moment, but everything about it felt off to K. She'd never seen him wear such an obviously fake smile, after all. "What do you mean? Canadian kid should go to the Canadian school."

"Good thing we don't have restrictions like that with our place," K pointed out. "And I think it should be her call. Not yours."

Veronica looked taken aback as Jana gently nudged her. "Oh. I… I thought I was gonna go with you?" she asked K.

"You can if you want to," K told her, though Mac was clearly getting ticked off beside her.

The little girl nodded. "I want to meet Amazon and catch fireflies, like you said."

"There it is," K said turning to Mac with a hint of a glare starting up. "She wants to head off with us."

Mac let out a breath and took K by the arm to pull her away from Jana and Veronica, nearly yanking her off of her feet as he did so. "A word, please," he said through gritted teeth as he led her off and out of the way where their talk could be more private. It wasn't _entirely_ private, though, as Natasha made herself comfortable leaning against the wall as if she too had been invited to the conversation. "This," he gestured toward Veronica, "shouldn't be happening. I thought Summers and I had this figured out. You stay to your side, and I'll stay on mine," Mac said in a much more severe tone than K was used to hearing from him - which clearly hit a nerve with her, too.

"He didn't say anything about it to me," K argued. "And if someone _wants_ to go with us, then they are going with us. I don't give a damn where you think the lines are drawn."

"We should have first shot at kids in our own country," Mac argued.

"Oh, I didn't realize we were dividing along country lines," Natasha said, her slight accent a little heavier than usual. "Shall the Avengers take any Russians, then? Perhaps we should put up a wall for a more obvious division."

Mac gave her a dry look. "I'm just trying to help these kids."

"Then help them by not condemning them to being stuck on Alpha Flight," K shot back with some heat as she finally yanked her arm back from Mac, though he still didn't seem to realize that he'd crossed a line with her.

"The whole purpose of having multiple schools is to give them a choice in their future," Natasha said. "I remember your speech at the opening of your school; it was moving."

"And she made her choice," K told him. "You lost this one. You think you'd know what that's like by now."

Mac looked fit to be tied, and color was rising in his cheeks as he glared at her.

"No means no, Mac," K said over her shoulder as she walked away from him. "She picked us. If she changes her mind, I'll personally give her an escort back." With that, she left Mac still staring after her, a muscle working in his jaw the whole time.


	9. Kill The Lights

While the team of X-Men and Avengers' ladies had gone to Canada, meanwhile, that left just a few people back at the mansion with the students and kids. And while Tommy and Clint were having a blast with the littlest ones… Billy and Teddy were running drama with _abandon_ , totally loving being part of the institute and cracking up at Gerry's hammy routine.

That is, right up until there seemed to be a problem with the stage lighting.

The light turned off and on a few times before it seemed to flicker and then finally come back on all the way, but the sweet little girl running the lights on the tech crew looked wide-eyed as she swore, repeatedly, that there was _nothing_ wrong with the lights themselves.

But while it would have just been a weird tech glitch for most of the kids in the play, the light problems seemed to totally terrify Gerry, who scrambled quickly off the stage with wide eyes and all but buried himself into Teddy — who was closer to the stage.

"Hey, woah, it's alright," Teddy said quickly as the skinny but overly tall little Drew nearly bowled him over. But when that didn't seem to do anything at all, Teddy patted his shoulder. "You scared of the dark too?" he asked lightly.

"I'm not scared of the _dark_ ," Gerry said, sounding insulted from where he was muffled hiding.

"Then what's up?" Teddy asked, glancing up as Billy made his way over with a curious expression.

And when Gerry saw Billy there too, he seized Billy's arm and pulled him a little closer. "Uncle Billy, you've got to help me," he said, entirely serious. "I think I'm being haunted."

Billy was taken aback for a moment at just how serious Gerry looked, especially because this was the kid who liked to tease, over-act, and generally goof around, whether it was here or at Avengers Tower. "What makes you think that?" he asked.

"The lights do that in my room," Gerry explained. "I thought it was just my room that's haunted, but what if it's _following_ me?" he added, his eyes widening that much more.

It wasn't like this was out of the realm of possibility, either, though Billy had a feeling that if there was a ghost or some kind of supernatural activity, there was no way it could have gotten into a school filled with superpowered people — and several little demons — with no one noticing. But since Gerry looked so upset about it, Billy nodded and met the scared boy's gaze. "Do you want me to do a search for anything magic? I can see if there's any curses or anything like that," he offered.

Gerry nodded quickly. " _Please_ ," he whispered. "My mom doesn't believe me. She says I'm just having bad dreams."

"Well, everyone saw the lights flicker this time," Teddy said reassuringly.

Gerry nodded again, holding onto Teddy while Billy stretched out a hand and did a quick scan — but he came up with nothing. Frowning, he tried a more intrusive scan, one that Strange had taught him that would probably have the bamfs' hair standing on end when it passed through the whole house looking for otherworldly influences — but other than a few ruffled little demons, again, Billy didn't find anything, and he shook his head at Gerry. "No ghosts here," he promised.

"Then…" Gerry looked around the room with a frown. "Is it hiding? Did it leave?"

Billy shook his head. "If there _was_ something here, it would have left a residue behind."

"But…" Gerry looked back up at the stage. "I don't understand."

Billy and Teddy glanced at each other over the top of the frightened kid's head and shared a nod before Teddy shifted slightly. "Could be something else," he said. "Why don't you let Billy do a little extra search here just to be sure, and you and I can go down to see Hank and see if it's something X-Men related?"

" _Why_ would it be X-Men related? My parents are Avengers," Gerry said, wrinkling his nose and looking like the whole idea was patently ridiculous.

"You never know," Teddy said. "And Dr. Blue's an Avenger too, so…"

Gerry tipped his head to the side as he considered Teddy. "Fine," he said at last. "But I'm telling you: I think it's a ghost, because there are _weird_ shadows in my room."

"And if that's the case, Billy'll find it," Teddy promised as he put an arm around Gerry's shoulders and started to steer him toward the hall. "Might just be harder to find. In the meantime, let's look at some more earthly options, huh?"

"Says the alien," Gerry muttered with a little smirk.

"Well, if it's space problems, I can't really help you there either," Teddy said with a little smile. "I've been on Earth my whole life."

"Yeah, alright," Gerry said, shrugging slightly, though the smirk was stretching into a smile as they headed down to the lab where Hank was

"What untimely malady has brought you to my domain?" Hank asked with a smile as he peeked over at the approaching group, hanging upside down with a book in his hand.

"I'm haunted," Gerry called out easily, a little more of a smile on now that they were further away from the stage and the lights.

"That seems highly unlikely," Hank replied. "Though if you are, I'd wager you got it from your father's side. It might explain his run-ins with massive contusions and bumps and bruises."

Gerry grinned at that. "Well, I haven't actually _seen_ the ghost yet, but if it's a floating pizza box of death, I'll let you know."

"Indeed," Hank replied. "I should hope you would. That sounds like something to cash in on." With that, Hank dropped from the ceiling and landed on his feet after an acrobatic flip. "Then perhaps you're truly here to pilfer my treasure trove of golden confections."

"Um. Yes. Exactly that," Gerry said, nodding. "You know how Uncle Teddy gets when he's hungry," he added, this time with a distinctly wider teasing smile.

"Yes, we should make haste," Hank replied, making a show of bounding over to them. "Now. Did you bump your head or scrape your knee?"

Gerry shook his head earnestly. "No. But I did almost knock Teddy over."

"Stronger than he looks," Teddy said with a smirk.

Hank frowned and patted the bed for Gerry to take a seat as he began his quick preliminary check. "Then I'm afraid you'll have to tell me what it is I can do for you."

"We just want to make sure this 'haunting' isn't something else we should be concerned about," Teddy said. "We all saw the lights flicker, so it's not just in his head."

"Ah," Hank said, nodding as he slid the chair across the room to retrieve his blood drawing supplies. "A quick test then?"

Teddy nodded, and Gerry looked more interested as he watched Hank pull out supplies. "What are you testing for?" he asked.

"A particular gene," Hank replied, seeing no reason to hide it from the boy.

"Oh." Gerry laughed and shook his head. "No, that's okay. Tony already told me I've got my mom's gene. That's why I might've hit Uncle Teddy a little hard…"

"Be that as it may, your father is a carrier of sorts," Hank replied. "And if you are the proud owner of an active X-gene, we should look into how best to teach you to control it."

Gerry stared at him for a moment. "Can I do that?" he asked quietly. "Can I have my mom's stuff _and_ be a mutant… like… a mutate-mutant… person?" He wrinkled his nose as he tried to figure it out.

Hank chuckled. "It's entirely possible," he said with a smile. "And I can tell you for sure in just a few short minutes."

Gerry continued to stare as he watched Hank work. "Wow," he muttered quietly. "That… huh."

"It would be pretty cool," Teddy told him, bumping shoulders with the skinny kid. "I mean, hey, I'm half-Kree and half-Skrull. It's amazing what stuff can come together."

Hank puttered around, humming to himself as he set up the test, and after he had a few tubes and timers rolling, he made his way back to Gerry with a Twinkie and a smile. "Would you like to watch the results come up yourself?" he offered.

"Can I please?" Gerry said, rushing over with a grin. "I want to be a doctor, you know. I want to learn _everything_."

Hank laughed and sat him down in front of the strips of paper he was waiting on. "A fine thing to strive to achieve," Hank said before he pointed to the test. "This is a genetic test … and as such, these different lines that appear will tell you if you have certain genes. We're waiting to see if a line shows up … here." He pointed to the spot and showed Gerry an example of a positive test result. "That one line will match up if you have an X-gene, and the one below it will appear if it's active."

Gerry nodded, grinning a little wider at being able to see how it all worked, though when the lines showed up while he was watching, he seemed to falter for a second as he glanced up at Hank. "Oh."

"Hey, lookit that," Teddy said with a smile as he ruffled Gerry's hair. "Looks like you've got a little extra oomph from both sides."

"I… don't… but I already _got_ powers," Gerry said with a frown.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Hank told him gently, especially considering how some of the kids had _not_ taken to their abilities as they emerged.

"No, I know," Gerry said. "Mom's said… I just already _have_ powers," he said again.

"Well, it seems as if you have a few more than you anticipated," Hank replied.

Gerry frowned at the test strips and pushed out his lips. "Okay," he said slowly. He seemed to think it over. "So… do you think it's part of why I can't fly yet? Because I have too much?"

"Maybe you just move at your own pace," Teddy said. "I mean, I didn't shapeshift until I was older, so I thought I was a mutant for a while. Might be that you're just doing things the slow way."

"Uncle Teddy," Gerry said with one eyebrow raised, "I broke your phone when I was _little_."

"Yeah, but your mom said you didn't get around to pheromones until, what, last week?" Teddy pointed out.

Hank raised his eyebrows as he looked over at Gerry. "What is it that you're doing that you're questioning?"

Gerry shrugged and scuffed the ground. "I just… I can make people feel happier?" he offered. "You know, like how my mom can make friends."

"He means the lights," Teddy said quietly. "Not your mom's powers — we know how those work."

"Oh." Gerry glanced between Teddy and Hank, the usually bright little boy a little quieter than before. "Oh, well. The lights are flickering in my room. And there's weird shadows," he explained to Hank. "You know… like in horror movies?"

"Are they worse when you're scared?" Hank asked.

Gerry nodded quietly. "Yeah. It gets darker."

"Then perhaps you can manipulate light," Hank told him.

Gerry frowned slightly. "Like… Mysterio?"

Hank paused. "That … would be something to be explored, but if it's flickering lights, I don't believe that would be the same."

"So … like a big light switch," Gerry tried again.

Hank had to chuckle at that. "Entirely plausible."

"I'm not sure I like that power," Gerry said. "All it does is turn out the lights. That doesn't really… sound like a good-guy power."

"Neither does freezing people's shower pipes, but that's what Bobby chose to do with his ability for years," Hank pointed out. "It's all in what you choose to use it for."

"I mean, look at people like your mom and Carol," Teddy pointed out. "They could totally twist someone up if they wanted."

"And they do."

"Bad guys only, though," Teddy corrected himself quickly.

"Look at most of those on our team," Hank continued. "Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, the ferals … any of them could do something they shouldn't, but do they?"

"Well, no," Gerry said. "I just…" He looked around the room. "My brother Nikki doesn't like the dark."

"Then you'll be the one he goes to when you learn to turn the lights back _on_ ," Hank pointed out.

"Do you think I can do that?" Gerry asked, starting to perk up a bit. "I thought it was just… shadows."

"Generally speaking, if one can manipulate one way, one can learn to go the other as well."

"If you're nervous, I can ask Billy to peek in the future," Teddy offered. "Or… don't you guys have a girl who can tell what the powers are? Jana's been at the Tower a few times if you don't want to see into the future and how awesome you turn out," he teased.

"We do," Hank replied. "Though it's my understanding that she joined the ladies for a mini mission."

"Girls night out — sounds fun," Teddy chuckled before he pulled an arm around Gerry's shoulders to steer him. "Well, let's go catch up with your dad in the meantime. He and my brother-in-law should be playing with all the kids, and you _know_ they're outnumbered."

Gerry had to giggle at that and nodded, and the two of them made their way up to where Tommy was, in fact, highly outnumbered by everyone under the age of five as well as half a dozen bamfs, while Chloe directed traffic, clearly running the makeover as the bamfs put bows in Tommy's white hair.

And Clint was just… not even _close_ to helping. The older kids were mostly taking care of themselves, playing games or coloring or watching the movie in the corner of the room, so he wasn't prevented from getting to Tommy. He just clearly thought it was funnier to see Tommy pretending so hard that he wasn't enjoying every second of hanging out with the kids.

"Hey, Teddy. Hey, Gerry," Clint called out. "You know, if you want to help, I think Chloe has opinions on lipstick shades."

"He needs red," Chloe agreed with a serious nod. "It matches the bows."

"Red it is," Clint agreed, matching her serious expression. "Do you have that in your makeup kit?"

Chloe looked toward Sammy, who was _relishing_ the makeover of her uncle and was in charge of holding all the supplies. The sweet little dark-haired girl looked through all the play makeup but couldn't find anything, so she shook her head.

"Well, I bet the girls have some… When's that mission supposed to be done anyway?" Clint asked.

"Going through withdrawals already?" Tommy called out from underneath the pile of kids.

"Obviously," Clint said as if anyone would have withdrawals from the Black Widow. "If she didn't know when she married me she'd be dealing with that…"

"Then she had her chance, we've heard," Teddy chuckled as he sat down by Harry and started making faces at his little boy.

"Yeah, he says that all the time," Zoe said without looking up. She had an elfling on either side of her as they watched a movie, but Zoe was more interested in the activity book she was working on, a little maze half-completed in her lap.

" _All_ the time," Nikolas agreed, giggling. He was helping the girls with pinning down Tommy and happily sitting on his legs.

"Only because it's true," Clint shot back, and both of his kids rolled their eyes in unison before going back to what they were doing.

Teddy had gently prompted Gerry forward, but the lanky kid was suddenly uncharacteristically quiet and had decided to avoid any further conversation by joining the girls on the couch, sitting by Charlie with her book so that there was no chance that he'd get interrogated.

Or… so he thought.

"Okay," Charlie said, turning his way. "You can't sit here."

"What? Why?"

"Because you…" Charlie wrinkled her nose at him. "You're _way_ too keyed up. And whatever it is you're so …" She paused. "You're overwhelming _me_ too."

"Oh."

She shook her head. "It's okay. But you shouldn't hide here. If it's that bad, you should do something about it."

"I'm just… waiting for my mom," he told her.

She tipped her head to the side and finally let out a sigh. "Okay, fine," she allowed. "But only until your mom gets here."

* * *

When the girls returned in the blackbird, there wasn't much of a break for those on board. Jana took the new girl down to see Henry for the mandatory once over while the other women headed upstairs. But even after their little flight was done, and they came home with the girl, K was in a spectacularly bad mood. Still. The fact was that Mac had never tried that pissing contest garbage with her before, and she did not appreciate the fact that he thought he could get away with it just because Logan wasn't around.

She was still trying to figure out if he thought he had leeway because she was married to Logan or if it was because she was on Scott's team or if it was because she was a _girl_. Any way it worked out, though, she wasn't about to just let it go.

"Any calls while we were out, torture husband?" K called out as they stepped out of the elevator to the main floor. She just _knew_ that it was a matter of time before Mac decided to try and start something.

"Ah, not anything of note," Clint said. "Unless you include Tommy calling for help," he added, gesturing toward where Tommy was getting the finishing touches of his makeover done. The girls were painting his nails — the bigger kids handling the polish under Chloe's supervision and clearly loving the fact that Tommy was letting them get away with it.

"Chicken shit little hoser," K muttered under her breath, though Natasha had to smirk a little wider on hearing the tone in her voice.

"What about you?" Clint asked with a grin. "Did you utterly abandon us for greener pastures?"

"I did, for about five minutes," K replied. "Then I got my coffee and came to my senses."

Clint chuckled at that and waved Natasha over to kiss her cheek. "You've been missing the show," he told her. "The kids had an uprising. And we need to borrow some red lipstick."

Natasha smirked. "I think I might have something," she said.

"See?" Clint turned toward the kids. "I told you she'd come through."

"Yeah, but you think Aunt Nat can do _anything_ ," Krissy pointed out.

"Well, she can," Clint said, as if the idea of anything else was ridiculous.

"I only have 'berry'," K said, "And I doubt it's red enough for his skin tone." She looked up at Clint. "We picked up a kid. _Might_ have started an international incident. If I didn't, I will."

"See, this is what happens when you go off without coffee," Clint teased.

"Who pissed you off?" Teddy asked.

"Mac Hudson," K answered. "We had words. Half of which I'm sure were too big for him to understand. You know. Big, meaningful ones like 'no'."

"And 'no' means 'no'," Nikolas supplied helpfully. "Mom says that all the time."

"Yes, exactly, _lyubimaya,_ " Natasha said with a fond smile. "It's important to learn while you are so young."

K gestured to Nikolas. "Even this little guy gets it." She shook her head and took a seat nearby. "I'm sure I'll hear about it later. Either Mac will whine to Scott or he'll tell Logan I was _mean_ to him."

"Well, were you mean to him?" Chance asked, looking up from the board game he was playing with James and Cody.

"I don't think so," K replied. "I think I was too nice, actually."

Chance frowned a bit at that. "Well, sometimes you can be mean without meaning to be, but I don't think you can be _too_ nice, can you?"

"He just wasn't getting his way," K promised. "And he should be used to that at his age."

"So besides the Canadian-American War…" Clint said, grinning at the girls. "Uneventful?"

"Found a great place with fresh blueberry donuts," Jessica chuckled.

"Ooh, I love those," Sammy said with a crooked grin. "Did you bring me any?"

"You'll have to see if Kate ate all of them," K told her.

Sammy scrunched up her face and shook her head. "She better not!"

"She didn't," Kari giggled. "Mama always lets us have sweets too."

"So… let's march to the kitchen?" Tommy offered, though he had to stop talking to let Chloe put the finishing touches of lipstick on his face, getting it on the corners of his mouth and some on his cheek.

"You look great, Speed," Clint chuckled. "Great job, Chloe."

"Thank you!" the little brunette sang out as she hopped off of Tommy's lap and scooted off in search of donuts.

"So ... if that _hoser_ calls … I want to talk to him," K warned.

"If he does, he's all yours," Clint promised.

The group migrated to where the donuts were, and the sweets had only just been passed out when Jana arrived with the newest mansion resident and Hank. Veronica's eyes were wide as she took in the group of Avengers, X-Men, and kids — until Charlie called out to her. "You don't have to be nervous. Nobody here's gonna bite you. You can have a donut too."

"I already ate one," Veronica said with a smile. "And a Twinkie."

"You're going to need to take a look at the classes we offer at all three schools," K told her when the little girl looked a little overwhelmed at the heroes around her. "Take your time. Just go to class, and when Scott gets back, you can tell him what you'd like to do."

"Okay," she said with a little nod as she sat down next to Charlie, who seemed like a friendly face.

"So, what do you do?" Chance asked conversationally after a nudge in the side from his sister — who was trying to make Veronica feel more welcome.

"Do?"

"Like, powers?" he amended.

"Oh, I can talk to bugs," Veronica explained.

" _Cool_ ," both Gerry and Chance said at the same time that Krissy let out a little "eww."

"I mostly like fireflies," Veronica said.

"Oh, _those_ are okay," Krissy said quickly.

"Can you make them glow in patterns?" Chance asked.

"Well, I don't _make_ them," Veronica said with a little frown. "I just… think about it and ask them in my head."

"That's so cool," Chance said.

"What do you do?" Veronica asked.

"Oh, I just hit things," Chance said with a shrug. "I'm learning how to fight."

"Oh." Veronica frowned. "Does everybody have to fight?"

"No," he said quickly. "No, only if you want to be an Avenger or an X-Man when you grow up."

"But self-defense classes are required," K amended for him. "There's no reason you shouldn't know that much."

"Yeah, that's true," Chance agreed with a nod.

Veronica glanced up at K and slowly nodded. "But no fighting, right? Just self-defense?"

"Not if you don't want to, no," she agreed.

"Good," she said, nodding to herself.

"Chance," K said, "why don't you and Charlie help Veronica find a room? No student coming in should go that far without at least one Summers in attendance."

Chance grinned and nodded. "I know where the best rooms are if you like being outside," he told Veronica in a little whisper. "My cousin Leslie Ann likes to stay over there when she comes to visit with the Avengers or for family things."

"Your cousin is an Avenger?" Veronica asked.

He grinned. "My cousin is Amazon."

"No way!"

"Yep!" He grinned as she stared at him for a moment. "Come on; I can show you where you're staying, and if you want, we can go see the greenhouse."

"Oh, yes please," Veronica said with a steadily widening smile as she followed Chance out, though Charlie stayed behind and glanced up at K.

"I'm not gonna get in the way," she said simply.

"That sounds interesting," K said, finally smirking at the little girl.

Charlie shrugged. "Chance knows where to show her around," she said. "And he likes that she thinks he's cool, so… he can be the cool tour guide."

"It's so nice that you care enough not to outshine him in cool factor in front of the new girl," K teased.

Charlie stuck her tongue out at K. "I just don't like it when he gets jealous, that's all."

K gave her a sidelong glance and leaned over to kiss her on the top of the head. "Good sister."

* * *

In the meantime, Jana had made her way over to where Jess was sitting with Gerry and sat down by the two of them as well. "Hank said you wanted to talk to me?" Jana asked with a small smile, knowing what it was that Gerry needed but not wanting to overwhelm him.

Gerry glanced up at Jess, totally busted, and frowned. "Yeah," he said with a quiet nod. "Dr. Blue… said you could tell me what my powers are gonna be."

"I can," Jana agreed. "I don't know if I can tell you your mom's power set, but if you have a mutant ability, I can tell you all the way up through a secondary mutation — if it's related to the first power, obviously."

"Can you try and tell me about my mom's powers, though?" Gerry asked quietly. "It's genetic too, so… maybe?"

"Maybe," Jana said with a nod as she offered him her hand. "No harm in trying."

Gerry hesitatingly grabbed Jana's hand and watched her carefully as she scanned him. It didn't feel any different, so he wasn't sure when it was over until she opened her eyes again. "So. The good news is that I think I can sort of see your mom's powers. I don't think you can fly, but you'll get stronger with time too."

"Really?" Gerry asked, lighting up with a grin.

"Really really. It'll probably happen as you get older and get used to your _other_ powers, which are also pretty cool," Jana said with a smile. "You can play with light. Not illusions, necessarily, but light itself." She smiled. "You could make it darker or brighter — or even write your name in the sky in light when it's dark out if you wanted."

"Whoa," Gerry said, his eyes wide.

"I'm sorry, did I miss something?" Jess asked with an odd sort of crooked smirk.

"Oh, um." Gerry looked between Jess and Jana. "Dr. Blue tested me to see if I was a mutant," he said. "It was _really_ cool. He showed me how the test strips work and what to look for."

"He thought he was being haunted," Teddy supplied for Jess with a little smile. "You should have seen the show he put on with the stage lights."

"I didn't mean to," Gerry said.

"You didn't hurt anything," Teddy promised. "The lights still work fine."

"You wouldn't have hurt them anyway," Jana said. "You manipulate the light itself, not the light sources."

"Dr. Blue said that means I got powers from _both_ of my parents," Gerry added with a little smile. "Cause if you do a test on Dad, he'd get one line but not two, right?"

"Well, your dad _has_ the X-gene…" Kate said. "He just…"

"...has it weird," Clint finished with a little smirk. "Not really a mutant."

"But you are," Jana said, smiling at Gerry. "Pretty cool, right?"

He nodded slowly. "Does that…. Does that mean I have to change schools?" he asked with a frown.

"Not if you don't want to," K told him. "You're not required to go to our school or any other one."

Gerry looked relieved. "Oh, good, because I like my school," he said.

"But you should still learn how to use your powers so you don't accidentally cause any more hauntings," Teddy teased lightly.

Gerry rolled his eyes at Teddy. "I know _that_. I already am learning with Mom about pheromones and stuff." He paused and glanced up at Jess. "But I don't… really know _how_ I'm turning the lights off, though," he said hesitatingly.

"You know," K said, tipping her head to the side as she watched him. "You can come by a couple times a week or on the weekends if you want to work with Scott or someone that has to turn things on and off."

"Weekends would be good," Gerry said, nodding. "Then I don't have to go to _two_ schools in one day." He made a face at the thought.

K tutted and ruffled his hair as she walked past him. "Such a Barton."

"My name's _Drew_."

"Yeah, but man ... "

He grinned. "Yeah, Uncle Steve says I'm a spitting image."

"Yep," K agreed. "And in oh, so many ways."

"Besides," Kate said with a little grin, "you can always change your mind. Krissy doesn't want to go to the classes with the older students just yet, but maybe when you're both older…"

"Yeah, maybe after elementary school," Clint said with a smirk.

"That's next year, Dad," Gerry pointed out.

"Uh-huh."

" _Dad_."

"What?" Clint shrugged lightly.

Gerry rolled his eyes at Clint before Krissy teleported over to him to grab him by the arm. "Come on," she said. "We can figure out who you can take lessons with later. Let's go play."

…..

Translated from Russian:

 _Lyubimaya -_ beloved sweet one


	10. Drinking Party

Peter Quill's coordinates had been perfect and took the group of X-Men right to Corsair's last hideout. There was definitely the evidence of a Shi'ar ambush, scorch marks and otherwise, but out of all the space tech and the Starjammers memorabilia and other junk, Scott had found an old bomber's jacket to take back with them — and they didn't stick around long after that.

"So," Peter said as they headed back to the _Milano_. "Once we get out of Shi'ar airspace, there's a bar about halfway home, great music, good drinks…." When Scott simply shrugged, Peter nodded. "O..kay. So. We'll do that then," he said, climbing into the cockpit to set the coordinates.

No one argued with Peter as he piloted them back through the Shi'ar territory. They had a slightly easier time simply because the Guardians had been keeping a closer eye on Shi'ar aggressions lately, so the trip was relatively quiet — though Quill wanted to get them somewhere to drink because, well, Scott had just lost his dad, and he felt like he should do something to let the guy process that.

Scott made it a point to fold the bomber jacket carefully before he sat down and rested his head in his hands for a long time. There was a part of him that thought he should have taken something related to the Starjammers, but even though that was who Corsair had been for the better part of five decades, Scott had always preferred Major Christopher Summers. Even if that name had died when Scott was ten, that was how he'd always seen him.

He still felt a bit … off about the whole thing. He felt like he should have been more upset than he was — and make no mistake, he was upset. Corsair had been family. But… they weren't close. The last time he'd seen the man was at his wedding.

 _At least there's that,_ Scott thought, though it did leave him wondering if Corsair even really knew anything about the grandchildren he had on Earth. Alex said he sent pictures… Scott paused and searched through the pockets of the bomber jacket for a moment, wondering why he hadn't before when he was in the hideout.

When he pulled out the pictures of the kids — his and Alex's — he let out a small sigh of relief. _Well, at least he got the pictures_ , he thought to himself, though he noticed that they were older. Chloe was barely a year old in the most recent one, and Michael looked almost newborn in the one Alex had sent.

He put the pictures back in the pocket of the jacket carefully and leaned back to close his eyes. At least he'd get to go to the funeral this time around.

Scott was grateful to the other three that they didn't try to press him on anything or even try to engage him in conversation, at least until Peter announced that they were at the bar he'd told them about. Once he'd landed the _Milano_ , Quill led the way to where they could already hear music playing.

The little group made their way to a booth, and Quill started to order drinks for the group, though they weren't sure what the hell he was ordering, since Terran beverages were in low supply in that part of the galaxy.

"So … this stuff is pretty strong, so maybe take it easy, okay?" Quill said to the group at large. "Even the stuff I get is pretty harsh."

"That's alright; you don't have to keep up," Kurt said as he pulled the drink in front of him forward and took a long drink.

Logan smirked Kurt's way in spite of himself. "Yeah, it's not really a concern," he agreed.

"Oh, no. You don't … okay. So I already _ordered it_ to account for your freaky mutant Irish thing, Wolverine. But … that's some special stuff, so really. Go easy."

"Kid's lost his mind," Logan said to Kurt as the drinks arrived, and it was very clear that Quill wasn't joking. Whatever it was he'd gotten for Logan did not look anything like the rest of them.

"Hmm." Kurt leaned over toward Logan. "Trade?"

"NO!" Quill half shouted, hands outstretched. "That stuff will … it's too strong for most Terrans. Trust me. You'll probably … like … go blind or something."

"Spoilsport," Kurt grumbled, shaking his head.

"I am trying to protect … you know what … just wait and see," Quill said. "That stuff should be strong enough to keep him _honest_ on the one for one with everyone else."

"Well then," Kurt said, a small little smirk lighting up into an impish grin before he toasted Logan. "And Kate will be forever disappointed she's missed it."

Logan shook his head and picked up the glass with the others, and a moment later, he and Kurt were ready for refills.

"That is _not_ going easy," Quill said, watching the two of them.

"I don't know what you thought was going to happen," Scott said mildly, halfway through his own drink and shaking his head.

"I _thought_ that this would be a simple drinking session," Quill defended. "A little memorial thing … not … we're going to need help carrying them back if they keep up at this pace."

Both Kurt and Logan scoffed at him openly before they took their second glasses, and Quill reached over the table to grab their wrists. "I'm not kidding." Almost in synch, and without either of them breaking eye contact with Quill, both of them simply switched hands holding the glasses and started on the second.

"You're the one that ordered the drinks," Scott said.

"Well … I was aiming for a nice buzz? Not … oh, man," Quill said. "How are we going to move Logan when he goes down?"

"Not much different than carrying him out when he gets hurt. You getting old on me?" Scott said with the beginnings of a smirk.

"How many times have you had to carry him when you were buzzed?" Quill challenged.

Scott paused, shrugged, and said, "Can't be any different than me being hurt too."

Quill shook his head and turned to watch as Kurt and Logan were already looking like they were relaxing. "We're gonna get in trouble."

"Come on, Peterquill," Kurt said with a teasing grin. "Weren't you an outlaw?"

"He's afraid of getting a public intoxication writeup," Logan said low with a definite smile. "So, he must not be as bad as he thought he was." The two friends set their glasses down again, and Quill looked between them both for a moment.

"I'm not — I'm just trying to make sure we get home. How many is that for you two?" Quill asked, just then noticing that the bartender was watching the group very carefully.

"Three for me, Four for him," Kurt said, tipping his head to the side. "Because he's cheating."

"So this is just like going to Harry's," Scott said with that same smirk.

"Just trying to match the level," Logan defended.

"You shouldn't lie so obviously, Logan, on _top_ of your cheating," Kurt teased, his smile steadily widening.

"I'm not," he swore. "I was told I'd go blind — and I ain't even half blind yet. _Lies._ "

"I said _Kurt_ would go blind. Geez." Quill shook his head at the pair of them.

"Seems like he's makin' promises he can't keep, Slim," Logan said, resting his chin in the palm of his hand.

"I dunno; you seem pretty buzzed to me," Scott shot back.

"I ain't arguin' that," he replied. "This is almost as strong as the stuff Thor brought in." He smiled crookedly. "That was some damn good stuff."

"Then you're just complaining to give Kurt a chance to catch up," Scott said.

"Yes," Logan agreed, nodding his head. "That's it exactly."

Scott smirked at that as he put his focus back to his own drink, which was his second, shaking his head at Kurt and Logan as they kept up their pace — and Quill had half an eye on the bartender.

"You know," Quill said suddenly, shortly after Logan and Kurt both slammed their glasses down with a shout. "We should probably move this party somewhere else."

"Fine by me," Scott said as he pushed himself to his feet. "You've got more in the _Milano_ , right?"

"Well, yeah — but not the rocket fuel Logan's drinking."

"Alright." Scott nodded once and looked up at the bartender. "We'll need a bottle of what he's having."

"Are you sure?" the bartender asked. "He's already had more than I've poured before for a _crew_ , let alone one person."

"Yeah, we'll take it," Scott said.

"You _trying_ to kill him?" the guy asked, though he wasn't stupid enough to argue it as he pulled up the bottle.

"If I said yes, would you take it back?" Scott smirked.

"No," the guy answered.

"Great," Scott said as he leaned over the counter for the bottle and let Quill pay for it.

"What… is even happening right now," Quill muttered as he shook his head and paid for the drinks.

When Scott got back to the booth, Logan and Kurt were snickering to themselves, half leaning on each other.

"More in the _Milano_ ," Scott told the two of them, holding up the bottle.

"Perfect," Kurt said, getting to his feet and swaying once he was upright. "Oh. I wasn't expecting that."

"Yeah," Quill said as he got to the booth and put an arm under Kurt's shoulders. "I was."

"C'mon, Peterquill," Logan drawled out, following Kurt out of the booth "Didn't know you were that uptight."

Quill smirked his way. "Nah," he said. "I just got the easier job." He indicated Kurt with one hand.

Logan looked up at Scott with a raised eyebrow. "He's never dealt with the tail."

"I knew I forgot to tell him something," Scott said with a perfectly straight face.

Logan broke into a huge grin as he put his arm around Scott's back. "Yeah, I buy that."

"Perfectly reasonable. I was distracted," Scott said, nodding. "And he seemed to have watching the intake under control…"

"What's to watch?" Logan asked. "Goes in 'til he's had enough."

"I think he's trying not to get his father-in-law killed, to be honest," Scott said with a smirk.

"I'm not gonna die by alcohol poisoning," Logan argued.

"Not for lack of trying."

"Exactly. If I haven't done it by now, it's not gonna happen." He paused and rubbed a finger over his lip with a little frown. "Good buzz, though."

"Got the bottle," Scott said, holding it up.

"It's different than alcohol," Logan told him.

"Same results, though," Scott said, gesturing with his chin toward where Quill was swearing under his breath trying not to step on Kurt's tail as the overly-affectionate Nightcrawler leaned on him.

"More or less," he agreed. "Can't feel my lips anyhow."

"Right." Scott glanced down at him. "You know, you don't need the whole bottle; K might like this stuff."

"No, she doesn't need it," Logan argued.

"I didn't say to drink."

"Oh. Okay then," Logan agreed.

With none of the men in a fit state to fly, Quill pulled out some of his own stash from the _Milano_ as they found a rocky outcropping nearby to sit down. Of course, Logan and Kurt went from sitting to lying down, staring up at the stars as they tried to keep going, though with Scott and Quill controlling the flow, it was a lot more reasonable.

It continued that way until Kurt decided he needed to go to sleep. "Inside the ship, thank you," he said. "I don't want to wake up on the rocks with my tail knotted." He turned toward Quill. "Come on; you can help me."

Logan tipped his head back and watched as Quill got closer. "You've been nominated as Elf keeper." He started to laugh to himself. "Tuck him in. Kiss his forehead or you're fired."

"Yeah, I think you've got me confused with my wife, but thanks," Quill smirked as he helped Kurt get to his feet and headed off.

There were a few beats of silence after Quill and Kurt disappeared into the ship with Kurt shouting that the forehead kiss was _not_ optional before Logan turned to Scott with a grin. "Got any more of that stuff?"

Scott shook his head as he passed Logan the bottle. "That's what I said when we left the bar, isn't it?"

"Yep," Logan agreed as he took it and sat up to take a hit. "Honestly, the regular stuff'd probably do the trick at this point," he admitted.

"Great. Pass it back — and you can save it for later," Scott said, holding out his hand.

Logan didn't even hesitate to do exactly that before he sat up a little more, swaying where he was seated. "How you doin', Slim? Need a refill?"

"Probably," Scott said, though the way Logan was swaying, he handled it himself before Logan could try to stand up, shaking his head the whole time.

As Scott got himself another drink, Logan was sure to get one for himself — though there was no looking for it, as Kurt had left his behind. The two of them shared a look, and Logan raised his glass Scott's way before he slung it back and went almost to the ground again, propped up on one elbow. "For the record, I'm fine sleeping on the rock," Logan told him. "So … don't hold back on my account."

"Not on yours," Scott said, shaking his head as he examined the drink in his hand. "More… I'm not sure what's worth getting that drunk."

"''Just because' works from time to time," Logan pointed out.

"Yeah. Well. 'Just because' doesn't work right now."

"No, it sure doesn't," Logan agreed. "Sorry, Scott."

"On what account?" Scott asked with a dry look Logan's way.

"Pick one and apply it," Logan countered without missing a beat. "Dealer's choice."

Scott smirked and then tipped his head back, closing his eyes for a long moment before he looked back Logan's way. "None of the kids knew him," he said at last. "It'll probably just be me and Alex at the funeral."

Logan turned his head Scott's way. "Would you change it if you could?"

"Which part?" Scott asked with a little frown.

"Any of it," Logan answered. "Because a lot of that wasn't by your choice."

"Logan, if it was my choice, they'd both have had a chute with us."

"I know," he said, nodding. "That's not what I meant."

Scott nodded slowly before he took a long drink. "No," he said at last. "My family…. The X-Men were the better choice every time."

"You're doin' one hell of a job with yours," Logan said. "Those kids are great."

"They've got a solid family to raise them," Scott said.

"Yeah, you've done right by 'em," Logan agreed.

"Annie keeps them in line," Scott said with a small smirk.

"She's not the only one, Scotty," Logan pointed out. "You two are doin' one helluva job."

"We have help," Scott pointed out. He paused. "I know where Charlie's head was at not too long ago."

"She'd be lost without you," Logan said, his eyes closed.

"She'd be in Chicago or LA with Rachel or Remy."

"And miserable," he added. "Last thing she wanted to do was leave."

"Yeah. I… can't thank you enough for that," Scott said slowly. "That was my little girl you saved."

"You'd've done the same," Logan replied.

"If they ever needed it — in a heartbeat," Scott swore. He leaned a little further back with his eyes closed.

The silence stretched out for a while before Logan drew in a deep breath and turned toward Scott. "You know, we're not leavin'. At all."

"I know."

"Good," Logan said, shifting how he was lying to get more comfortable. "Just had to say it."

Scott let out a breath of a laugh. "Right." He shook his head. "Look. I know you've said you won't sign up with Mac. That doesn't mean I don't trust him not to pull anything. I'm just trying to look out for my team."

"Oh, he's pushin', alright," Logan said. "But it's never really done him any good before, and it won't help him in the future. Cousin or not. The answer's no. Besides. K don't like him. At all."

"Good." Scott started up a slow smile. "Not that… I mean, he's a decent guy," he tried to explain.

"She told him he was an _asshat_ ," Logan said with a laugh. "And as useful as one too."

At that, Scott broke into a laugh that lasted longer than he'd meant to. By the time he got himself back under control, he simply couldn't stop grinning. "You know he offered to build Chance one of those suits," he said.

"Of course he did," Logan said, shaking his head. "Nice play."

"I can't exactly tell Chance no," Scott pointed out. "You know how badly he wants it."

"No," Logan agreed. "But he's a smart kid. He'll realize we're not goin' up there very often even if the invites are common enough. Hopefully that'll keep him from goin'." He sat up again, propped up on both elbows. "And we're not goin' north for anything else to do with them either. That last trip …" He let out a growl and reached for the bottle Scott was hitting.

Scott handed it to him. "It was a solid play. And about as much of a move to fit K's name for him as he could have possibly made," he added with a steadily widening smile.

"You wouldn't believe the string of curses …" Logan shook his head. "I had to carry her out over my shoulder."

"So there's no chance for another Canada visit."

"Heather was ticked off too," Logan told him. "She had no idea."

"Heather's…" Scott let out a breath. "I don't know how she does it."

" _I_ know. She loves him. She backs him, even when he's wrong," Logan said. "She's been head over heels from the day they met, the way she tells it."

"She's a good person," Scott said. "Thinks with her heart." He leaned back. "If Chance takes Mac up on it…"

"Heather'll keep an eye out," Logan said. "She's in love with those kids."

"Yeah, I noticed," Scott said. "I'm glad they've got one of their own. Really. Mac may drive me nuts, but I know that had to be hard."

"It was," Logan agreed. "Hopefully, the little guy is smart enough to follow Heather's example."

"Well, he's already taken a shine to Elin," Scott pointed out.

"She got bored with him after a few days of neediness," Logan replied.

"Genetics."

"No kidding," Logan started to chuckle. "No fun if they're always wantin' to be babied."

"How's she doing, anyway?" Scott asked, leaning a little further back.

"Elin?" Logan asked, turning his head toward Scott again. "It's a lot to take in. I'm sure it doesn't seem like it, but it is."

"Charlie's told me some of it," Scott admitted. "Elin's been a good friend to have. I think it goes both ways."

"Oh yeah," Logan agreed. "Genetics."

Scott let out a laugh. "I'm too drunk to get into that."

"What's to get into?" Logan asked. "Just roll with it."

"That has _never_ been my strong suit," Scott pointed out, still smiling from laughing earlier.

"You'll get there," Logan promised.

"Right." Scott set the drink down and started to get comfortable. "Billy ever tell you what he did?" he asked slowly, sounding more tired than before.

"Did to what?" Logan asked. "He's done a few things, I think."

"Yeah, no kidding." Scott leaned further back until he was almost horizontal. "You know that dimension of his — the one he created on his own?"

"He said it was pretty awful," Logan said, nodding, though his eyes were closed again.

"Yeah, it was. He showed it to me."

"Was it as bad as he said?" Logan asked. "Cause I think he was stretchin' the truth a little bit."

"No, he wasn't," Scott said. He was quiet for a long time and nearly drifted off before he came back. "Weapon X came to the mansion. Looking for you and K. And when they caught up to you both…" He trailed off and shook his head. "They had body cam footage from the mansion."

Logan frowned as he thought it over. "Why?"

"Why do you think?" Scott said, shaking his head lightly, though the quiet between them stretched out for long enough that Scott thought Logan might have drifted off until _finally_ , he spoke up.

"Reprogramming," Logan said flatly, in a very quiet tone.

Scott sat up slightly and frowned his way. "No," he said, shaking his head with his eyebrows furrowed. "They didn't look like they'd had you that long, where Billy showed me…"

Logan opened his eyes, though he didn't turn Scott's way. "Reprogramming only works when there's something traumatic enough to pull you in. It's all based off of damage. Been through it enough to know. Besides, cocky as they are, that group wouldn't show it to me to boast. Too dangerous a move. Smarter to keep it a secret unless they knew they could use it."

"Well damn." Scott frowned. "It was me," he said after a pause.

There was only a beat or two before Logan breathed out a 'That'd do it.'

"It wasn't all bad … where they are now, that dimension, they're rebuilding. You and K've got the twins." He shook his head with a smirk. "Probably dealing with Charlie's powers right now."

"Feel sorry for that kid then," Logan said. "Probably can't stand to be near us."

"You can ask Billy," Scott said. "I doubt she'd find anything in that dimension that wasn't touched by trauma, to be honest."

"Sounds like we screwed it up pretty bad," Logan said quietly.

"Not where I was," Scott said. "You and K had the kids." He leaned back again. "Couldn't have placed them anywhere better, from what I saw."

"You _are_ drunk," Logan said, shaking his head.

"I'm allowed," Scott said with a small smirk.

"You are," Logan agreed as he looked around himself and sat up properly. "C'mon; you'll probably catch hell if the girls find out we slept on the ground."

"Oh yeah, sure, _I'll_ catch hell," Scott said in a tone that said this was just typical.

"We just spent a couple weeks sleepin' on the ground campin'," Logan laughed as he got to his feet — unsteadily. "She'll make me do it just because she can."

"You know, I _can_ camp," Scott pointed out irritatedly.

"I know," Logan agreed. "But there's no tellin' what kind of alien might take a shining to you and try to drag you home. And I'm _not_ gonna try to explain to Annie why ET's callin' you."

"Nah. They couldn't take both of us," Scott pointed out as he let Logan pull him to his feet.

"Maybe if I wasn't drunk," Logan argued. "Unless the plan is to ditch me and run."

"No way," Scott laughed. "Cody would kill me for losing his karate instructor."

"Can't let down the kiddie class," Logan agreed as the two of them figured out how to lean on each other and not fall down.

"They're getting past kiddie class," Scott pointed out.

"Says you," Logan argued. "You're still kiddie class as far as I'm concerned."

"There is no timeline in which _anyone_ isn't kiddie class to you," Scott grumbled.

"Exactly," Logan agreed. "Even K's … nope. Not drunk enough to say anything there."

"You'll be teaching my grandchildren and still looking like you're thirty," Scott complained.

"If I live that long," Logan pointed out.

"No, no. You'd do it just to spite me."

"Right, because that's what I'm worried about," Logan laughed. "What's the point of spiteing you if you're not around to see it?"

Scott shrugged lightly. "You'd do it."

"Not out of spite," Logan argued.

"Teaching the kids? No," Scott agreed. "They'll be better than we were if we do it right."

"That's up to them," Logan pointed out.

"You'll live to see it, too," Scott said. "Long after I'm gone."

"No reason to say mean things," Logan said quietly.

Scott gestured between himself and Logan. "What, you can't tell the age difference?" he asked. "It'll catch up to me like it did Corsair."

"I know," Logan said before his tone changed entirely. "Why do you think I never wanted to stick around?"

Scott stopped, and because they were leaning on each other, so did Logan. "It's not…" He shook his head. "I wasn't trying to—"

"I know. Let it go."

"It's — it's not — it's still a way out before it gets to that point anyway," Scott stammered out after a moment, frowning hard at Logan.

"I know."

"I'm fine. Even Erik's doing better lately."

"No kidding. You outdrank Quill for one," Logan agreed.

"Exactly." Scott nodded as they resumed walking to the _Milano_ together.


	11. Scott Needs A Hug

The next morning on the _Milano_ , Logan was the only one spared from the effects of an alien-alcohol hangover, which had the others grumpy about it as they headed back to Earth. Kurt was the worst off, though Quill had some stuff on his ship that he claimed was the best hangover cure — at least when it came to the alien stuff.

"Doesn't quite work the same on Earth libations," he admitted. "But for this stuff? Oh yeah."

Kurt quietly nodded his thanks — though after drinking the foul-smelling stuff, he did actually start to feel much better. " _Danke_."

"Thank Gamora. She's the genius behind it," Quill admitted as he handed some to Scott for the same treatment.

And it really did help with the hangover — though it didn't help Scott much that morning. He was in a foul mood because of the headache and because Logan was just fine — not to mention the fact that Scott still remembered the conversation last night and was slightly mortified over the whole thing. There were some things he would rather keep to himself, after all. But it was impossible to tell with Logan if _he_ remembered it at all — though he _had_ been pretty drunk…

Scott didn't have to think it over for too long when his phone lit up as they got closer to Earth — hitting them with any messages they might have missed while they were out. And there were a fair few for him.

He frowned at his phone. If there was an emergency back home, the team knew that they would be in space and would have contacted them through the _Milano_. So this had to be something else, though what that was, Scott had no idea until he listened to the first furious voicemail from Mac Hudson accusing Scott of sending his team to go back on their agreement.

Which didn't make sense in the least and only had Scott frowning deeper and trying to pay a little better attention, wondering if he was still a little too hungover to be hearing this right.

There were a few more like that, with Mac more or less accusing Scott of trying to muscle in on his turf, accusing him of stealing kids for his school out from under Mac's nose — a whole lot of accusations that didn't make the least bit of sense.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then tried to listen to the messages again to see if he could parse what was going on. From what he could tell, K was with a team that … had pissed Mac off somehow.

Scott rubbed his forehead and glanced up at Logan, who had his own phone to his ear with a frown. "Oh … that … was an extremely poor choice in words," Logan muttered. They shared a nod — it seemed like they both had to deal with this special brand of stupid.

Quill dropped the three X-Men off in Westchester, and they hadn't gotten too far inside before they spotted K chatting easily with Natasha as it looked like the last of the kids in the tactics class Natasha was covering for Scott were trickling out.

"Ah, the timing is impeccable," Natasha said with a smirk when she saw them. "Wait until I'm finished with _your_ last class of the day…"

Scott shook his head at her with a little smirk. "We didn't do that on purpose."

"Of course not," Natasha said, matching his smirk as she leaned against the wall.

"Right," Scott said before he turned to K. "So, I don't suppose you could tell me what happened in Canada."

"We helped a little girl, and then we came home," K replied. "She's charming, her name is Veronica, and she wanted to go with the lady crew over the stupid moron running things in Ontario."

"So it was her choice," Scott said, sounding tired.

"Of course it was," K replied, looking insulted at the idea of anything but.

"I didn't say you — I'm just making sure I have it right, because what I got from Mac was more or less that it had been a sting," Scott explained.

"What _exactly_ did you get from Mac?" K asked with one eyebrow arched as she squared up, clearly ready for a fight just from hearing it.

"A few voice messages," Scott said with a shrug. "I didn't get much on details, though — which is why I came to you."

She put her hand out. "I wanna hear 'em."

Scott smirked. "You don't need to. You were there."

"I _want_ to hear what he had to say behind my back," K replied. "I know he probably was stupid enough to send one to Logan too — and I _will_ hear that one — so let me see how stupid he is when he's talking to you and thinks no one will ever _tell me_."

Scott shook his head as he started to hand her the phone but paused right before to look at her. "You're not going to start an international incident."

"Start? No. I _will_ finish one, though."

"It doesn't count as 'starting' if it's just voice messages, K," Scott said with a smirk.

Logan was smirking as he watched the two of them going back and forth. "He said I needed to get my woman under control. Have fun."

Scott looked up at Logan almost like he couldn't believe he'd heard him correctly. "Is that you paraphrasing or…?"

Logan tossed Scott his phone. "Listen for yourself."

Scott frowned as he handed K his phone and then listened to the message on Logan's — and though he didn't say a word, he did snap out his old glasses as he handed the phone back to him after he'd heard the message Mac had left.

K didn't make a move other than to narrow her eyes as she listened to the escalation of messages from Mac to Scott. When she was done, she handed him the phone back gently. "Still think I might have started something?"

"K, I never said you _started_ it, just that I needed proof _he_ did," Scott said.

"Well. You two … are actually going to handle this one for me," K said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

"What happened to finishing an international incident?" Scott asked.

"I'd like to," K admitted. "But… in about thirty seconds when that one gets over here and gives me a kiss, it's all going to be over." She smirked crookedly as Logan took the cue to come over and steal a kiss, though Scott was watching them with a frown as Logan chuckled and pulled her into a tight embrace and a much more involved and extended kiss. It took a few moments after the two of them rested their foreheads together before K got the chance to explain, stepping partly away from Logan, who was _grinning_. "You know ...since you boys seem to take issue with me doing anything _fun_ while I'm waiting for a baby."

Scott froze for a second before he broke into a beaming smile and then had to pull K into a hug. "When did you find out?" he asked.

"Not too long after you guys took off," she told him.

He grinned and set her down again. "Well then."

"It's all you, Slim," Logan told him as he pulled K back over to his side. "You can tell Mac any damn thing you want and I'll go along with it." The two of them started to walk backward down the hall, leaning on each other. "We'll be _upstairs_."

Scott simply nodded at both of them. "Yeah, you have better things to think about," he said, still with a little smile as he turned to head down toward the War Room to do just that and call up Mac — though the smile didn't last into the call when Mac picked up on the other end of the video call.

"Well it's about _time_ I heard from you," Mac said, looking entirely exasperated.

"There's no cell reception in space," Scott said.

"Right. _Space_. Sounds like a typical X-Men excuse."

Scott narrowed his eyes. "Just because you don't have the funds or the tech to go as often as we do doesn't mean it didn't happen. Seeing isn't believing," he said. "And I don't want to get into it. It's been a long damn week, Hudson. I don't appreciate coming home to you _whining_ in my voice mailbox."

"I _thought_ we had an agreement," Mac said with a deep frown.

"Yeah, we're letting the kids decide where to go. I'm not stopping any Americans from crossing the border either."

"We're not allowed to go pick up Americans, though," Mac pointed out.

"That's what happens when your school isn't independently owned. I can't help you there." Scott shrugged.

"If that's the case, then you won't have any trouble setting up a day where we can come to recruit at your place."

"Mac, you've already read through the material I give incoming students on all _four_ schools. You agreed it was fair back then. You sure this isn't just because you're pissed at K?"

"She sure as hell didn't help matters," Mac replied shortly.

"What, exactly, is your problem with what she did?" Scott asked. "From where I'm standing, she followed our team's protocol. She went to where a mutant was in trouble, got her out of trouble, and offered her sanctuary."

"Is your team's protocol set up to rub it in my face that we're not as _illustrious_ as you are?"

"There's no way in hell that's what she said, so don't try that on me."

"She said I needed to let these kids _not_ be _condemned_ to a career on Alpha Flight," Mac said with a deep glare. "What the hell does that sound like to you?"

"Was this before or after you came in and tried to take over after she and her team did all the legwork of actually finding and rescuing the girl?" Scott asked, not trying too hard to hide the smirk.

Mac let out a mirthless laugh. "What the hell difference does that make?"

"Look, it's not our team's policy to comment on the different superhero teams across the globe, but if you think _either_ of the Howletts will respond to a lesson in diplomacy, I'm sure I could waste my time to ease your ego," Scott deadpanned.

"That's … that is not the point," Mac replied through gritted teeth.

"No, the point is that you yelled at a pregnant woman, insulted her and my team in my voice mail, and then suggested that she needed to be _controlled_ better by her husband. And you're upset because she suggested that your team might be less than the X-Men." Scott shook his head.

"Well that pretty much explains everything then, doesn't it," Mac grumbled.

"No, I'm still trying to wrap my head around where you get off insulting her like that. I don't care if she hurt your feelings. I put up with this enough with my kids, Hudson."

"Listen, I'm not going to get into anything with her right now," Mac said, clearly trying to backtrack. "Those ferals are emotional enough on a good day …"

"Yeah, don't say anything like that when you call her and apologize. And I'll tell her to expect the call… when?" Scott asked with his arms crossed.

"I'm not apologizing."

Scott shrugged. "Fine. Then you can stop demanding one from my team if you're not willing to do the same," he said. "And we'll go back to the system that's been _working_ for the schools this whole time. Let the kids choose." He smirked. "Maybe after you've been in business for a few decades, you'll catch up to us."

"Fine," Mac shot back. "Tell Logan I'll be in touch."

"No, you won't," Scott said. "He's got other things to be dealing with that are more important than your photo ops."

"Come on, Summers. That was a fluke thing."

"Oh yeah. I'm sure it was a fluke thing. The reporters happened to be there. Both of your missing teammates just happened to have incomplete information… A carefully-planned fluke."

"So I set it up. So what?"

"So if you think anyone on my team is going up there again without _full_ information and without going through me or one of the other school headmasters, you're out of your damn mind."

"There's nothing wrong with trying to get the old team back together."

Scott cocked his head to the side. "There's something wrong with lying to your team to do it. That should tell you how much they want to be on Alpha Flight." He paused and smirked. "K wasn't wrong." He paused and took a deep breath. "And you should know, seeing as Logan was on your team for a while — lying and manipulating them? Pretty much sealed the deal. You're lucky they left when they did."

"So are they," Mac agreed.

Scott let out a breath of a laugh. "Yeah. I'm sure." He shook his head and then leaned back in his seat. "My team isn't going to stop rescuing people, Mac. I know the situation over there isn't too friendly right now. We just went through the same thing a couple years ago. There's no shame in letting our team help these kids avoid getting chased down."

"Yeah, I know," Mac said with a sigh. Then, his tone changed entirely. "I don't suppose there's a chance of a one-on-one on your turf."

Scott paused as he considered it. He knew the _reasonable_ thing to do would be to hear him out, no matter how annoyed he was with the guy. "You and Heather are welcome to come visit. Annie likes her, you know," he said at last.

"Everyone likes her," Mac said. "Do you have a place to talk _outside_ of the school?"

Scott frowned the slightest bit, but he was well-aware that the political situation on that side of the border was too-familiar after they'd been through the registration and tagging fight a couple years back. Maybe talking over something that wasn't a channel the government could listen in on was a good idea. "There's a great restaurant in Salem Center that Annie loves. We take Bobby and Rachel there when they come to visit."

Mac let out a breath and nodded. "Before school starts up in the fall," he said.

"Anytime after mid-August," Scott said.

"Let's not nail anything down now," Mac told him.

"Alright. I'll send you a few options for dates when the semester ends and we've got our summer plans sorted out with Annie's family."

"Text it to Heather," Mac said.

"I'll talk to you then," Scott agreed before he reached over and flipped off the comm.

* * *

"And here you said you were past the stuff you were drinking last night," Kurt teased when he saw K and Logan wrapped up in each other as they headed upstairs from the hallway they'd left Scott.

"You have something that I can use to take advantage?" K asked over Logan's shoulder. "Gimmie."

Kurt chuckled. "I don't know where Scott put the bottle; you'll have to ask him. But it was _wunderbar_."

"He won't trust me with it," K said. "Spoilsport."

"Nonsense; I distinctly remember that he wanted some that you two could share…"

"No, he won't," Logan agreed. "An' I never said I wanted to share it."

Kurt shook his head, his palms outstretched. "I must be missing something."

"Very small something," Logan agreed. "I think we need Cap this time around, the Elf can't take a hint."

Kurt looked between the two of them for a moment with a little frown as he worked it out — that quickly turned into a smile as he did. "There's no law that says I can't be used twice," he teased.

"Or that we can't just do two godfathers," K agreed.

Kurt grinned at her and shook his head. "When did this happen?" he asked, the smile steadily growing.

"I just told him," K said. "And Scott by default. Because he was there at the time. But … I found out while you were gone. _Drinking without me_."

"It's probably for the best for the little one. Peter Quill was overly concerned that it might blind someone," Kurt chuckled.

She looked betrayed. "Always all the fun without me."

"Is that so?" Kurt laughed. "The bamfs told me that we have two new students." He paused. "Well, one new student and Gerry on the weekends," he amended.

"All I did was yell at Mac for one and buy donuts for the other," K defended.

Kurt laughed again. "Those both sound fun," he pointed out.

"And you're just trying to make me feel better," she replied.

"Naturally," he agreed with a grin before he made sure to wrap them both up in hugs. "Congratulations — both of you. Your little one will be amazing."

"Thanks, Elf," Logan said with a smirk. "You get to tell Kate."

"Lucky me," he said, the grin only widening.

* * *

Like Scott had predicted, it was just him and Alex in Anchorage when it came time to bury the flight jacket where technically their parents still had headstones from the plane crash. There hadn't been any bodies then, either — but it seemed fitting anyway.

When Alex met up with Scott, it was at the site of the original crash. It had been almost fifty years since that time, and there were a few changes to the area — more developments and that kind of thing — but it still looked mostly the same in that one spot.

They stood there in silence for a while before Scott finally handed the pictures from the jacket pocket to Alex. "I guess he kept them," he said quietly. "Thanks for sending them."

Alex glanced down at the pictures for a second and nodded before he reached over and pulled Scott into a hug for a good long time.

"He must have been too far out to get some of the newer ones," Alex said after a moment when the hug broke and both of them had a moment to compose themselves. "I tried to send some every year."

"Thanks," Scott said.

"Hey, that's what brothers do," Alex said with a careless shrug.

Scott nodded at that before the two of them made their way down to where Christopher and Katherine Summers had headstones. Scott had already made the arrangements so they could lay the bomber jacket in the space reserved for the two of them — so at least something was buried there — and when Alex saw the jacket, he couldn't help but reach out to hold it for a second.

"He kept it," Alex said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, he kept more than I thought," Scott said, though he couldn't think of anything else to say about it.

"I talked with Kitty and Peter before I came out here; they let me know the whole story," Alex said.

"I didn't want to bring back any of the Starjammer gear," Scott admitted.

"No, no, this works best," Alex promised.

Scott nodded at that and set the jacket down — and Alex set the pictures on top of it before he made sure to wrap an arm around Scott's shoulders again.

"C'mon, Scott. Buy you a beer."


	12. Chance Has A Crush

When Chance spotted the new girl, Veronica, coming out of his dad's office with a little frown on her face, he practically skipped over to her, sure that he could help with whatever had her looking so down. "What's up?"

Veronica glanced up at him and gave him a little smile. "Oh, hi, Chance," she said. "I was just getting all the different information about the schools I can go to."

"You're not going to go here?" Chance asked, his head tipped to the side.

"I don't know," she admitted. "There's a lot to choose from."

"There are," Chance agreed. "But I think this one's the best."

She grinned at him. "That's because you _live_ here."

"Well, yeah," he said, shrugging openly. "But that doesn't mean I'm _wrong_."

She giggled at that. "You're silly."

"I get that a lot," he said with a nod before he offered her his arm to take the way he'd learned from watching Kurt and Logan and his dad and Hank. "You wanna go hang out outside? My sister does that whenever she gets overwhelmed."

"Who says I'm overwhelmed?" Veronica asked with a bit of a challenge in her tone.

"You just… looked like it," Chance said.

Veronica giggled. "I thought your _sister_ was the one who knew how to read emotions."

"She is!" Chance shook his head. "I just… pay attention."

"You're smart," Veronica told him, and he blushed.

"I… okay."

She giggled again as the two of them headed outside. "Do _you_ know what school you're going to?" she asked him.

Chance shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "I like where I am right now."

"I don't see you in any of the classes at school."

"That's because I'm being homeschooled."

"Inside a school."

"Yeah, it's kind of weird," Chance admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "But I also take lessons from Logan and K and my dad and, well, pretty much anyone who'll let me take lessons. I'm getting pretty good at Kate's archery classes too."

"I've never been to one of Professor Hawkeye's classes," Veronica said. Neither of them were paying much attention to where they were going until they got to the gardens and sat down on the swing.

"They're pretty fun," Chance said, grinning. "She says I've got a natural talent for hand-eye coordination."

Veronica giggled at that and nodded. "So how come you don't go to class with everybody else and show them how it's done?" she teased.

He stopped to stare at her for a second as he thought about it. "I dunno," he said. "I guess I just like being with my family."

"You do have a pretty cool family."

"Yeah, they're the best," Chance said, kicking his feet a bit to get the swing to sway.

"My dad's still in Canada," Veronica said.

"So, are you gonna go to the Canada school?" Chance asked.

Veronica shook her head. "No. My dad says it's probably safer if I go someplace on the other side of the border." She pulled a face. "People are mean back home."

"People are mean here sometimes too," Chance said. "When I was little, these bad guys tried to kill my cousin for being an X-Man."

Veronica nodded as she thought it over. "Do you think I should go to that school?"

Chance shook his head. "I think you should go where you wanna go," he said. "My dad's always saying that the whole point of the different schools is so that people can get to choose where they want to go."

"Yeah, that's what he said to me."

Chance nodded, swinging his feet a little more as the swing creaked back and forth. "I think I want to go to both," he told Veronica. "I want to be an X-Man when I grow up, but I don't have any powers, so I want to learn as much as I can."

"But there's four schools," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but the other two aren't for hero training," Chance explained. "And that's what I want to do. I want to be a hero."

Veronica giggled. "You would be really good at it."

"You think so?" Chance asked, perking up and grinning widely.

She nodded. "My dad says you can do anything if you work hard, so if you're working that hard, you'll be a good hero."

"I like that," Chance said, looking overly pleased with himself at the compliment.

"I don't want to be an X-Man. Or even an Avenger or any kind of hero at all," Veronica admitted, glancing down at her hands. "I mean, I think heroes are pretty cool, but I don't like fighting." She watched a little beetle crawl over her fingers, and Chance, entranced, watched over her shoulder. "And I don't want my bugs to get hurt."

"That's okay," Chance assured her quickly. "My sister doesn't want to be a hero either. She wants to play the piano. And read books."

"But this is the hero school, like you said," Veronica pointed out. "And I don't want to be a hero."

"Well, Canada's school is a lot like this one too," Chance said.

"Yeah." Veronica shrugged. "It's not _just_ like this one, though. I like the people here better," she added, grinning over at Chance, who flushed bright red.

"Yeah… me too," he admitted.

She grinned at him and giggled before she leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. When he spun around to goggle at her, totally not expecting that move, she giggled all over again and then kissed him on the mouth — just once, and just for a second, but it was enough that it had Chance even more wide-eyed as he stared at her.

"Thanks for talking to me," Veronica said, still giggling as she hopped down off the swing and headed inside, and it took Chance several seconds to recover enough to hop down as well and call out a quick 'you're welcome!', though he wasn't sure if he should try to follow her or not, since she was leaving.

He didn't actually know what to do _at all_ , if he was being honest. He was still trying to figure out how to tell when he liked girls, and here one of them had kissed him — and it wasn't Elin.

Elin was different anyway, because he had known her since they were little, and she would give him cupcake kisses if he asked — but she always said he was being silly. And he didn't think Veronica was just being silly.

But… that meant that she _liked_ him, right?

He stared down the path Veronica had disappeared before he finally let out a little laugh that turned into a whoop before he ran off toward the school.

* * *

On Saturday, Jess brought Gerry to Westchester for his first lesson, and it was a bit of an understatement to say that he was nervous about it. This new power wasn't like the powers he got from Jess, which Jess could easily help him with, because she knew from personal experience how they worked. With his light powers, he was still trying to figure out how to even turn them off and on — or how to turn them on _on purpose_ , which was a whole other thing.

But it helped immensely when the first person they met at the mansion wasn't any of the X-Men but Krissy popping in to get the door with a wide grin and purple smoke. "Hey, Gerry!" she said, grinning at him. "Come on in!"

"Hey, Krissy," he said, matching her grin.

'You're here to learn how to haunt people, right?" Krissy teased him.

"Yeah, so you better watch out," he shot back.

"I'm _not_ scared of the dark," Krissy said, sticking her chin out at him.

"Okay," Gerry said, laughing as he shook his head.

"You'll get it in no time," Elin said from around the corner.

"This is only my first lesson," Gerry pointed out. "It took me, like, _three_ before I could figure out how to make people happy with pheromones."

"Yeah, but you're quick," she said. "And when you're done, we can go horseback riding."

Gerry grinned. "That sounds fun," he agreed, though he was still sticking close to Jess as they made their way to meet up with Scott for the lesson.

Scott grinned at both Gerry and Jess when they arrived and waved them into the classroom. "Jess, Charlie said you could read her Nancy Drew book while you're staying," he said.

"You have really thoughtful kids, you know that?" Jess said with a smirk as she sat down in one of the chairs and Scott crouched just slightly to be at Gerry's eye level.

"We're just going to see if you can turn on your powers when you mean to, instead of only on accident," Scott explained, and Gerry nodded.

"Okay."

Scott gave him an encouraging smile, and the two of them sat down. Scott dimmed the lights in the room and brought out a single-light bulb lamp. "Just see if you can turn the lights off. We'll start with something small instead of blacking out a whole room."

Gerry nodded. "So… a step down from an entire stage," he surmised with a crooked sort of grin.

Scott smirked at that. "We'll work up to that if you want."

Gerry laughed and nodded again. "Maybe next week."

Scott's smirk widened, and he gestured to the lamp. "I just want you to focus on the light from the bulb. If it's easier to make it brighter, you can do that too." He gestured around the dimmed room. "You're not going to hurt anyone's eyesight if we shine a little more light around here."

Gerry nodded and leaned forward, watching the lightbulb intently for any sign of dimming or brightening, but for several long minutes, there wasn't any change, and he let out a sigh. "It's not working."

"It's fine," Scott assured him quickly. "Sometimes it can be harder to turn it on. That was the hardest thing for me to learn."

Gerry frowned but still nodded, staring at the lightbulb for a few more minutes before he shook his head. "I don't… feel anything."

"I know it's frustrating," Scott said, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"I just… don't know… what muscle to flex or…"

"It'll get easier to figure out after you've done it on your own a couple times," Scott promised. "It's different for everyone, but once you figure out what the secret is, it's just a matter of practice."

"Like playing baseball."

"Exactly." Scott nodded. "You had to practice so you could hit a pitch, right?"

Gerry nodded.

"And for the first little while, you couldn't hit anything, right?"

Once more, Gerry nodded.

"Then consider this your practice swings."

Gerry tipped his head to the side as he thought about it before he grinned and nodded and leaned forward again, watching the lamp and narrowing his eyes. If he watched the lamp with his head tipped to the side just right, it looked sort of like the shadows were moving, and that made it a little easier to imagine them crowding around the light…

And just like that, the whole room went pitch black.

"Great job," Scott said as he flipped on a flashlight so that they could see again, though that didn't do a thing to pierce the darkness. "Huh."

"What?" Gerry asked.

"Nothing bad," Scott promised quickly. "It just looks like you're putting out the lights in the whole area."

"That's what I'm supposed to do, right?"

"Right," Scott said. "Now… do you think you can turn it off again?"

Gerry frowned. He didn't have the sort-of-moving shadows this time around to help him. So instead, he closed his eyes and tried to see the lamp in his mind's eye. He peeked one eye open… still nothing. "Ummm…"

"It's alright," Scott promised quickly. "Take a deep breath."

Gerry did just that, glad that no one could see how wide-eyed he was, before he closed his eyes one more time and tried to do what he did when he was practicing pheromones with his mom, clearing his mind…

Sure enough, this time, when he opened his eyes again, the only light in the room was from the flashlight and the lamp. So it was back to normal.

"That was great, Gerry," Scott said with an encouraging smile. "Now, do you think you could go the other way, and make it brighter?"

"I've… only ever made it dark."

"I know," Scott said, nodding. "But I want to see if we can do more than that. I know Jana scanned your powers and said you should be able to do both. You can get it down to a more precise art later — we're just focuses on dark and light."

"It's… easier to do shadows," Gerry admitted.

"That's fine," Scott said. "And I won't be disappointed if you can't reverse it this time. Sometimes it takes a while to get used to it."

"Yeah, I know," Gerry said before he settled in to watch the lamp again.

The three of them stayed in that room for another hour or so, practicing using Gerry's light powers. It had taken him a while to figure out making things brighter, but once he started to imagine pushing _back_ the shadows, he started to get the hang of that as well.

All in all, it was a good lesson, and Gerry was grinning by the time it was over.

"We'll do this again tomorrow," Scott said. "And maybe work on a little fine-tuning. I bet you could turn off the light from the flashlight and not the lamp if you worked on it."

Gerry nodded. "Thanks, Scott," he said with a little grin.

"You two are staying for dinner, right?" Scott asked as he got to his feet.

Jess nodded. "Elin already invited Gerry to go horseback riding with the other kids."

"Then I'll make sure Annie knows there's two more place settings."

Gerry grinned up at the two adults before he made a dash for the barn, excited to get to hang out with his friends. He was nearly outside when he ran almost right into Chance, who was also headed out to the barn but was coming from the other hallway.

"Hey, Gerry!" Chance said with a huge grin. "How did your lessons go?"

"Really well, I think," Gerry told him. "Your dad's a good teacher."

"Yeah, he is," Chance said. "Are you coming horseback riding?"

"Yeah, Elin invited me."

Chance grinned. "I bet if you went here, you could go with us more often."

"Maybe," Gerry allowed. "But I've lived in the Tower my whole life."

"I've lived here my whole life," Chance said with a shrug.

"They're both good places to live," Gerry said as the two of them headed out toward the barn. "I like being with my mom _and_ dad, though."

"Yeah, I like having all my brothers and sisters here," Chance agreed. "But I was just talking to Veronica the other day, and—"

"The new girl?" Gerry said, with one eyebrow raised.

Chance nodded, a crooked grin stretching over his face. "Yeah. She's pretty, right?"

"I guess so," Gerry allowed.

"I think she is," Chance told him. "And we were talking about where she wanted to go to school, and then she _kissed_ me."

Gerry stopped walking and turned to face his friend. "What?"

"Yeah!" Chance nodded with a steadily widening grin. "She just kissed me out of nowhere."

"Did you kiss her first?"

"Nope!" Chance shook his head.

Gerry nodded as he thought about it. "Then she must like you."

"I think so," Chance agreed, still grinning.

"Do you like her?" Gerry asked.

"I think so," Chance said. "She's pretty, and she likes to talk to me."

Gerry shrugged. "That's cool," he said.

"Um, it's _amazing_ ," Chance corrected Gerry, who rolled his eyes. "You know, there's lots of cute girls at the schools. They have dances sometimes with all four, and it's really fun."

"That does sound pretty fun," Gerry admitted. "But I kinda want to finish my school this year."

"Well, maybe you can start in the fall," Chance suggested.

"We'll see," Gerry said, then grinned over at Chance. "Did you tell Elin that somebody _else_ kissed you?"

"I don't haveta tell Elin," Chance said with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Okay," Gerry said with a shrug. "But you and her are friends…"

Chance rolled his eyes at Gerry and shoved him in the shoulder. "You're not funny."

"That's not what my mom says."

"Your mom is biased."

"Yeah, but she's right!"

Chance shook his head at that as moved to shove Gerry again, but Gerry shoved him right back and then took off running, laughing all the way until the two boys got to the barn with the rest of the kids for a lazy late afternoon ride.

* * *

The kids had just gotten done with their own school day with Annie when Veronica got out of her last class as well, and she went down to go find Chance with a little smile. "Do you want to walk with me to your dad's office?" she offered, and he nodded quickly, running to catch up to her in the hallway.

"Are you going to talk to my dad about schools again?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, I think I know where I'm gonna go."

"So, are you gonna stay here?"

Veronica shook her head. "No, I think I want to go to the one in California," she admitted. "I don't want to be a hero, but I'm not really a big science person either."

"Oh." Chance frowned but tried to look encouraging. "That's… good."

"Are you mad at me?" Veronica asked with a frown. "I told you I didn't want to be an X-Man."

"No…" He shook his head. "But that means you're going to the other side of the country."

She nodded and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "That's okay. You said there were gonna be dances with all of the schools, right?"

"Yeah," Chance said quietly, though he knew it wasn't going to be the same as getting to see her every day after he was done with school.

She gave his hand a little squeeze before she disappeared into Scott's office, and Chance sat down with his back against the wall and his knees pulled up as he waited for her.

"Well, you look like you're down in the dumps."

Chance looked up to see that Kate was there, clearly on her way to go pick up Kari, since Kari couldn't just teleport to go see her dad like Krissy could. But she had paused when she saw the disappointed little boy and sat down beside him in the hallway.

"My new friend is going to go to the California school," Chance explained, resting his chin on his knees.

"Oh," Kate said, nodding. "Veronica?"

Chance nodded.

"You two are pretty close, huh?"

He nodded again. "I showed her around the school, and we do homework in the garden sometimes."

"And you like her?"

He glanced up at her. "How can you tell?"

"You wouldn't be sitting here if you didn't," Kate pointed out. When he looked that much more disappointed, she let out a sigh and rubbed his back gently. "It's alright. You're still young. And your first crush is rarely ever going to last."

"Mom says my first crush was on Elin since I was a baby," Chance said.

"Baby crushes don't count," Kate said. She smiled sweetly at him and continued to rub his back with one hand consolingly. "But you're growing up now. You're just trying to figure it all out, huh?"

He nodded quietly. "I just thought maybe she liked me too."

"She might," Kate allowed. "But you're just ten. You shouldn't be putting your lives on hold because you have a crush," she teased.

"Yeah," Chance said. "But I'm still gonna miss her."

"That's fair," Kate agreed. "But that doesn't mean you can't be friends and that you guys can't hang out when you go to visit the schools."

"Yeah, I know."

Kate smiled and got to her feet and offered him a hand up too. "Who knows? Maybe she'll change her mind when she gets older. You've got a _long_ time to figure this all out, Chance."

"I know," he said again before Kate pulled him into a hug.

"Don't be in such a hurry to grow up, okay?"

He laughed a little bit. "You sound like my mom."

"Thanks for the compliment."

He laughed again, this time a little louder. "Okay. You're welcome."

She let him go and then ruffled his hair. "Tell you what. When you're done here, come find me, and we can go out for ice cream. It's pretty much the best cure ever for the blues, especially when it comes to dealing with crushes."

He smiled and nodded at that. "Okay. That sounds good."

Kate ruffled his hair again and headed off to go find Kari, and it wasn't too long after that before Veronica poked her head out of Scott's office and smiled Chance's way.

He walked with her down to the living room before he told her he had to go practice karate and left… though he really did head down to where all the equipment was for the karate class, figuring he could just hit a punching bag or something.

When he got down to the room, he could hear two voices going back and forth in Japanese as Elin and James practiced together. They were working a lot harder than they did in class, and the two of them were actually hitting each other — not doing the blocks that Logan had the kids in class do either. But they both stopped when they saw Chance.

"Do you need to hit something?" James asked.

Chance nodded.

"You want to spar with us?"

"Do you mind?" Chance asked.

The two siblings shared a look and both shook their heads. "More fun, isn't it?" Elin asked.

Chance nodded again. "Yeah, I think so."

"Get changed and bring it on," James said with a smirk. "We can show you a flip that dad taught us. The rest of the class probably won't get to it for a couple weeks."

That got a little smile out of Chance as he hurried to get changed. "That sounds fun."

When Chance got back, Elin started to tell him how to do the move, using James as a throwing dummy to start with, though it was fun to watch when he made a point to add in dramatic sounds along with it, including a fading scream that went whisper quiet once he was on the mat.

"You should be in Kurt's drama class," Chance said with a grin.

"Too boring," James replied upside down on the mat.

"Don't tell him that," Chance laughed.

"Too late," James replied as he bounced onto his feet. "Ready to go?"

Chance grinned and nodded. "I think I got it," he said before he stepped up and carefully followed what Elin told him with a look of concentration that turned into a grin halfway through the move.

"Not bad," Elin told him with a smirk.

"Thanks," Chance said, brushing off his hands. "I need to practice it."

"You'll get it," she said, offering him a hand. "Try again."

He nodded at that, and the same look of concentration from before flitted over his expression, especially because this time, Elin was the throwing dummy, and he was a little bit worried about wanting to do it right. But after he completed the throw, he couldn't help but smile at her. "You okay?"

"Of course I am," she said with a grin from the mats. "Wanna do it again?"

He nodded and gave her a hand up so they could practice a few more times until he felt confident in his ability to handle the throw. He offered Elin a hand up from the mat one more time and then brushed his hands off on his clothes. "Thanks," he said.

"Anytime," she replied. "It's fun."

He nodded his agreement. "Yeah, it is. And better than just hitting the bag."

"It is. Do you feel any better?" Elin asked.

"A little bit," he admitted.

She brushed her hair out of her face and peeked up at him. "Can I ask what's wrong?"

He shrugged a bit and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's kinda… well…" He let out a breath. "You know the new girl, Veronica?"

Elin nodded. "She's nice. I like her."

"Me too," Chance said. "But she's going to California for school."

She looked shocked for a moment. "Oh no."

Chance nodded and scuffed the ground with one foot. "It's… kinda stupid. She said she didn't wanna be an X-Man, but I was hoping maybe she'd stay here."

"No, it's not stupid," she said.

He nodded, then took a deep breath and half-whispered, "She kissed me. A couple days ago."

"I know she likes you," she said. "I'm sorry she's leaving."

"Yeah, me too," he said quietly.

She crossed the span to where he was and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "Don't worry, Chance. You're really sweet. There are lots of _nice_ girls that are going to melt for you."

He hugged her back for a long time and nodded. "Thanks, Elin. You always know what to say."


	13. Claws And Flowers

When May Parker arrived at the mansion for Sunday tea, she was of course greeted by Krissy answering the door, and the sweet little girl took her down to the dining room with a crooked grin. But when they got there, the dining room wasn't empty. Instead, it looked like Billy and Teddy were visiting, because their little girl was playing with Sadie in the corner of the room with a beautiful blue tea set.

The little girls were drinking real tea, and Sadie was very carefully showing Sammy how to do it right — down to the napkins on their laps and all of the 'please's and 'thank you's' that she could handle. Sadie looked up when she saw May in the doorway. "Would you like to join us?" she asked, already making room should May accept the offer.

"I think I will," May said with a smile. "At least until my tea partner gets here."

"Mommy said she's bringing him some special tea today," Sadie said.

"Any particular reason?" May asked as she sat down with the girls.

Sadie poured out a cup for May with her head tipped to the side. "Mmmmhmm. Mom and Dad are having a baby, so she says she has to have green tea now."

May's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, really?"

Sadie grinned up at her as she nodded her head. "Yep!"

"That's wonderful news," May said with a smile. "And thank you for the tea, Sadie."

"You're very welcome," she replied as Sammy giggled. "I'm gonna be a big sister!"

"Yes, you are," May agreed. "And you'll be wonderful at it. You're already so good at taking care of your friends," she added, smiling Sammy's way.

It wasn't very long at all before it was clear that K and Erik were in the kitchen, setting up the tea and chatting away, and when May heard the laughter from the other room, she smiled at the little girls. "Do you mind if I go next door?" she asked with a smile. "I'd like to congratulate your mother."

The two little girls shared a look and giggled. "Okay. Thank you for having tea with us!" Sadie was grinning as Sammy smiled up at May.

"Thank you for letting me join you," May said, getting Sammy to giggle again as she got to her feet and made her way to the kitchen to find K and Erik chatting together. "That daughter of yours is the sweetest thing I have ever seen," she told K with a smile as she crossed the room to join them.

"Oh, it's all an act," K said with a smirk. "They all do it."

"Then I suppose she must be some actress," May teased. "She's over there teaching Billy's little girl how to do a tea party the right way."

"Amazing. Oscar-worthy," K agreed.

"And she told me that she's going to be a big sister," May added.

"That much is true," K said with a nod. "Do you mind if I join you two?"

At that, May broke into a beaming smile. "Not at all. It's your tea," she said, one hand on Erik's arm as the two of them headed to the table.

"We were just talking about William and Theodore," Erik explained as he helped May to her seat. "They're making an effort to visit more often when there are _not_ signs of impending doom."

"He's just the sweetest little harbinger," K agreed.

"And he has the sweetest little ones," May said with a smile. "Last time they visited, they were telling me all about how much they love Kindergarten. They're making such good friends there."

"That's bound to happen," K agreed. "They're good kids."

"And as I understand it, they've come such a long way," May agreed.

"They were young enough to learn to trust and attach to people again quickly," Erik said softly. "And, of course, their parents are perfect for that."

"You two …" K let out a sigh as she poured the tea. "When can we expect the paperwork to go through?"

Both May and Erik glanced up at K looking completely taken aback. "What?" May asked.

"The mutual admiration society is adorable, really. But come on. Make it official. I'll do whatever you need to make it happen."

"Oh, no, we — the focus right now — we're planning Peter's wedding," May tried to explain.

"The way you two look at each other is precious," K said. "And I'm sure Peter wouldn't be upset if you two made plans of your own. While you're still young."

Erik shook his head at her. "And how old were you, precisely?" he asked with a teasing smile.

"When?" K asked.

"When you made 'plans of your own,'" he said.

"I'm reasonably sure Kurt made those plans?" K said with her nose scrunched up. "But over a hundred."

"Older than either of us," May said with a smile as she caught on to the teasing.

"Yeah. Do you think you'll make it to one hundred and twenty-five?" K asked. "Because if you think so, then I'll stop."

"Not everyone stays as young as you do," Erik said with a shake of his head.

"Which is my point, young man," K shot back his way. "Not everyone has the luxury of dragging it out as long as humanly possible."

"Maybe after Peter's wedding at the end of the summer, we can look ahead," May said at last, glancing at Erik to see that he was smiling to himself.

"Why not make plans to happen after Peter's wedding?" K suggested. "I was not in charge myself, but I'm told it takes time to get the ball rolling."

"It's been a long road for him to find Sara," Erik said gently. "May and I don't want to take from his spotlight."

"And an even longer one for the two of you to find each other," K pointed out. "Make it a fall wedding. Small. Just you and the kids. Kurt would officiate in a heartbeat."

"And would you like to plan it all, then?" May asked with a little smile.

"Hell no," K laughed. "Kate would do that part."

"Ah, so you are just making assignments," Erik chuckled.

"Respect your elders, kiddo," K laughed before she made a point of darting close enough to muss his hair and kiss his cheek. "Ha."

Erik shook his head and pushed his hair back down. "Really."

"I couldn't help myself," she replied with a grin. "You were asking for it."

"By doing what, exactly? Existing?"

"Yes. Yes, that exactly." K was still grinning at him. "If it makes you feel better, I'll pinch Scott's cheeks."

"You would think in a house filled with teenagers and children, you would have better targets," Erik said, still shaking his head at her.

"Is that a 'no' then?" K asked, grinning wider the longer it took Erik to answer.

"And how are you feeling?" May cut in with a warm smile.

"I'd feel a lot better if you had a shiny new ring," K shot back.

"I meant with the little one on the way," May said, shaking her head.

"Oh, dreadful, obviously," K replied. "I can't have coffee, so, you know — extra sass."

"And thus we see where the little ones get their dramatics," Erik said in an undertone to May with a little smirk.

"Yeah, Floating Grampa has no effect on that at all," K said, nodding seriously.

Erik shook his head. "I was speaking of _your_ little ones. Williams' are firmly getting their best traits from their fathers."

"And from Floating Grampa. Of course."

"You know very well it's been some time since I've levitated anywhere," Erik chuckled.

"I love it when you levitate," K told him with her chin in her hand. "Makes people nervous. Looks like the fun is getting ready to start."

Once more, he shook his head at her. "That," he said, "is because you came to this team so late."

"Maybe," she said nodding. "But I do remember reading the news. Still looked like a party starting up."

"Then maybe he'll do it in the fall," May said with a little smile that had Erik raising a single eyebrow her way before she added, "Since it all seems to be figured out for us."

"Well, the others won't talk to you," K said. "They are intimidated. I think you're both precious."

"I'm nothing to be intimidated by," May teased.

"Says you," she replied. "We've all heard nothing but sunshine about you for years."

May laughed. "Peter is a good boy."

"He is," Erik agreed.

"Feel free to overshadow whatever you'd like," K said as she finished her tea and rested her hand over her still-flat stomach. "Just don't wait for this one to be old enough to be your flower girl or ring bearer, please."

Both of them were shaking their heads at her as she left the kitchen, though after a moment, Erik turned her way. "Perhaps we should speak to Peter first."

* * *

It had only been a few days before Peter Parker showed up at the institute with wide eyes as he went right for where Logan was helping K in the barn. "You gotta help me!" he called out to them both as soon as he arrived, panting slightly. "My aunt wants to marry _Magneto_!"

"I'm not surprised," Logan said. "They've been spendin' a lot of time together."

"I don't think you get — this is the _second_ supervillain Aunt May has decided to marry, and the first one did _not go well_ ," Peter insisted, still wide-eyed.

"I don't know what to tell you, Petey," Logan replied. "Other than Erik ain't nearly as crazy as the last one. If you can believe it."

"Okay, first of all, that's not actually that helpful, because on the levels of crazy, I've seen plenty of twenties on a scale of one to ten," Peter said, bouncing from one foot to the other. "And just because he's a seven on the crazy scale does _not mean he should be marrying my aunt._ "

"Alright, since we're talkin' crazy, you're askin' _me_ about this," Logan said before he drew in a deep breath and let it all out. "What do you expect me, _the guy with the metal skeleton_ , to do about it?"

"Ah…" Peter stopped and then frowned. "Okay, to be fair, this was less 'crazy' than 'bad decision-making.'"

"If you think I'm gonna get in between him and a woman he's after, you're out of your gourd. He's already yanked the metal out once. I'm not goin' for a repeat performance."

" _That is not reassuring to me_."

"What do you want me to tell you, Petey?" Logan asked. "He isn't going to hurt her."

"I just…" Peter paced a small circle in the barn. "How… how did this become my life? I should _not_ be at a point where _Magneto_ is going to be my step-uncle."

"They are adorable together," K said from the other side of the barn. "And they already act like an old married couple most of the time."

"They're both old," Peter pointed out. "And previously married."

"And they sit around and drink tea and brag on their families between smiling and staring at each other for hours on end."

"I don't…." Peter sighed and shook his head.

"Want her to be happy?" K finished.

" _No_ ," Peter said, holding up both hands quickly. "No! That's not — I told her. I mean. When she told me, I said it was okay, I just… need… to freak out."

"I could freak you out if you need help," K offered. "Paint a mental picture that you'll never forget."

" _Please don't_ ," Peter said, wide-eyed.

Logan was chuckling under his breath at the look on Peter's face. "If you're worried, ask Billy if it's a horrible thing. If his grandfather's involved, he may tell you just out of his own curiosity."

"That… is actually not a bad thought," Peter admitted.

"Then I take it you're over freaking out?" K asked.

"Umm. No. I think I am going to be freaking out over my aunt marrying a supervillain for a _while_ , thankyouverymuch."

"Don't take too long," K said. "I'll need a sitter come December, and if you're not up to it, Sadie will have to go bunch up with the Summers."

"Umm, excuse you," Peter said. "Sadie is _so_ invited to our place whenever. We have a guest bedroom!"

"What about the other two?" Logan asked. "Think you can handle all three?"

"Oh sure," Peter said quickly, nodding.

"Great. Then you'll get them when we have the little one," K decided.

Peter broke into a huge grin at that. "Awesome!"

* * *

It was the last big karate class of the semester before break started, and the kids were trying to really pour their all into it while they were all together.

They were broken down by skill level, and once again, Elin was working with James, though when Chance finally caught up with them, halfway through the lesson, Logan pulled Elin aside and let Chance and James pair up, which the boys absolutely loved.

They were going back and forth really getting into the throws and tosses that Elin and James had taught Chance earlier in the year as Elin got going with her father with a much more difficult maneuver that was meant to sweep his feet out from under him — but Logan wasn't going to give it to her. She was frustrated and trying her very hardest, her little face screwed up in concentration as she worked, and just before she seemed to really get it, she slipped and fell, driving her frustration levels to a point that the little girl was refusing to talk.

She answered her father's questions with "yes" or "no" and then pushed forward on the punching bag that he'd put her to task on so she could burn off some steam and he could work with the other kids and make sure they were working well. Then, when she threw a bad punch, she thought for just a moment that she'd broken her hand from hitting too hard. But it hurt much more than she thought a broken hand should, and when she felt the hot blood running down her arms, she looked down at her hands and started to panic. "Dad …" she said quietly in a shaky voice.

By the time Logan got to her, she was sitting on the ground and crying, her hands shaking as she stared at her claws. "Alright, take a break," Logan called out as he knelt down next to her and started to murmur softly to her, talking her through it and holding her hands in his. She couldn't retract them, and she had no idea what to _do_ with herself, so instead of focusing on what he was trying to tell her, she simply turned her head into his shoulder and started to cry in earnest.

He didn't move her other than to pull her closer and keep muttering to her quietly from time to time as the rest of the group headed to the edges of the room and gave her space.

"Is she … gonna be okay?" Krissy asked quietly, worried about her friend but not sure if she should get close.

"Give her some time," Kurt said softly.

"She's scared," Charlie said just as quietly.

"And Dad said it hurts," James added softly.

Chance frowned at that. "Is it gonna hurt her every time?"

"Yep," James replied.

"That's… no good," Chance said.

James shrugged. "Can't change it."

"Let's give them a bit of space," Kurt suggested, putting a hand on both Chance and Krissy's shoulders to steer them out.

They didn't have long, though, before Logan picked Elin up and carried her out with her arms wrapped around his neck. She was still crying softly. Chance watched the scene for a while with a little frown before he nodded to himself and rushed off to the garden.

If Leslie Ann had still been there, there would have been lots more flowers, but since it was almost summer, there were a few roses and also some lilacs, and he grabbed a handful of both of those. He looked over his bouquet for a second and then nodded once more before he took off at a run back inside, all the way up the stairs to the Howletts' suite to knock on the door.

When Logan opened the door, Chance was still panting slightly. "Hey kiddo," Logan said, watching him try to catch his breath. "She's in her room."

"Okay," Chance said, rushing a bit more once he was inside before he carefully pushed open the door to Elin's room. "Hey, El," he called out as he peered around the door.

Elin lifted her head up from where she'd been curled up on her pillow, hugging it to herself. "Hi Chance," she said softly as she sat more upright. "Sorry I messed up class."

"You didn't mess anything up," he promised as he closed the door behind him and held up his flowers. "I… uh. I brought these for you."

She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands. "They smell really nice," she said.

He nodded a bit and came to sit down beside her to hand her the bouquet. "I just want to make sure you're okay," he said. "You're my best friend, so... " He shrugged. "James said it hurts. I'm sorry about that."

"It really does," she said as she took the flowers and smelled them again. "Thank you."

"Can I hug you?" he asked. "If you're still hurt, I won't do that, but you look like you need it."

"I do really need it," she agreed before she showed him her hand. "It's healed. But it still kinda hurts."

Chance scooted over so he could see her hands and frowned down at them before he pulled her over and hugged her hard. "I'm really sorry your powers hurt. That's just no good."

"I don't like them," she said sullenly.

"Well," Chance said, "I think that's okay. You don't have to like what you get. Some things are crummy."

"Dad says I'll get used to it," Elin said. "Mom too."

He patted her on the shoulder a couple times and then let out a sigh. "Well, I don't know anything about claws, but I know when I'm sad and don't feel up to hitting stuff, movies are good."

"Can we have popcorn too?" Elin asked. "I'm a little hungry."

Chance nodded. "We can have popcorn and maybe other stuff if you're _real_ hungry. I think Mom has some leftover banana bread."

"That sounds really good," Elin said, though she didn't move yet.

Chance gave her another quick hug before he hopped up and offered her a hand up. "You can pick the movie," he said. "Since you're the one with the power problem today." He grinned. "Maybe next time I'll pick it."

"I have this problem every day, apparently," she said, shaking her head.

"Nah, this one's new," Chance pointed out. "You've never popped your claws before. And Krissy and Gerry both said the new stuff's the worst to get used to."

"Yeah, but I knew it was coming," Elin said.

"Yeah, I remember when you broke your arm," Chance agreed. He opened the door for her and offered his arm. "That was pretty scary, by the way. The arm, not the claws."

"It really was," she agreed. "But the claws were scary too."

"Yeah, I bet," Chance said seriously. He tipped his head to look at her sideways. "But, you know, you got good friends. Me and Krissy and Charlie and James and even Gerry… we got your back for even the scary stuff."

"I know," she said before she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

He grinned at her sideways. "Come on. Let's go raid the pantry. I'll let you have the corner spot on the couch."

On the way out, Elin stopped and looked to where her parents were curled up together and smirking at each other. "Can I go watch a movie with Chance?" she asked.

"Have fun," K told her. "We'll be here if you need anything."

She gave them a little smile as she looked down at her feet. "Thank you," Elin said before the two little ones headed out of the door and downstairs to watch a movie.

Chance did everything he could think of to help, including finding her a blanket and making it so she didn't have to move at all as they set up. It wasn't too long into the film before Elin settled in with her head on Chance's shoulder, and before too long, she was soundly out.

Annie had sent Scott over with some more food because she was sure the little Howlett would need something to fuel her healing, but the pumpkin bread wasn't done until the movie was nearly over, meaning Scott didn't arrive with the bread until Logan was coming down to check on Elin and bring her up if need be.

So when the two X-Men arrived at the living room, they saw Chance very very carefully making sure the blanket was snug around Elin while she was asleep. She had slipped down off his shoulder during the movie, and he was just trying to make sure she was comfortable while the credits for the movie played quietly in the background, and he glanced up when the two men came in. "Hey," he said with a little grin. "She was really tired."

"Apparently," Scott said, trying not to smirk too much at the way Elin had her arm across Chance.

"This looks cozy," Logan said with a little frown as he came up behind Annie and Scott.

"She fell asleep," Chance said. "We were watching a movie."

"You did good lookin' out for her," Logan said.

"I didn't want her to feel like she had to be scared by herself," he told Logan earnestly.

Logan nodded. "Well I hate to break it to you, but that's probably gonna happen anyhow."

Chance shook his head. "No way. I'll look out for her. And so will Krissy and everybody else."

"Then she's got good people backin' her up," he said with a nod as he stepped closer to pick up Elin.

"Come on, bud," Scott said, tipping his head to the side. "How about you and I go out for a walk? It's a nice night, and you don't look tired yet."

"Okay," Chance agreed — though he glanced over his shoulder to make sure Elin really was okay before he headed out with Scott, who couldn't believe he was about to have a talk with his son about dating and propriety.

They were growing up way too fast.


	14. Clean Up On Aisle Canada

Since it was summertime, and there was no school to worry about, the kids in Westchester with powers had a little more time to work on their abilities — and to spend time with their friends and family they didn't see often, like Sying and Jayce and Tristan.

And on top of the usual visitors playing around and camping under the stars in the yard and playing in the sprinklers, the Hudsons also came down partway through summer.

Oliver was still a bit shy, but he seemed to get along well with Cody, who was just as much a bundle of energy and a desire to _do_ stuff as Oliver was at that age. So the two boys were sitting next to each other at the restaurant as the other three Summers kids teased and played with each other while Heather and Annie caught up.

"They're really doing well together," Mac said, watching Oliver play with the kids.

"Their moms did a good job with them," Scott said, "and we know it, too."

"No kidding," Mac replied, looking a little sheepish. "I need to apologize."

"Alright," Scott said, resting his arms on the table in front of him. "What's up?"

"The feds are breathing down my back," Mac said softly.

"Do you need help?" Scott asked just as quietly.

"Not … yet," Mac replied. "They … have a big hand on what's going on with the team — and the school."

"And they're pushing for more," Scott surmised. "More students or more high-profile teachers or something else?"

"Yes," Mac said slowly. "I wasn't trying to get Logan for selfish purposes. Not … entirely. I wanted him to figure out what was going on."

"You know if you just tell him something's up, he's a lot more likely to help than if you lie to him," Scott pointed out.

"Yeah, but if I told him outright, he'd push for me to just leave," Mac pointed out. "And then I wouldn't be able to pass a lie detector."

Scott frowned at that. "And they're getting more involved in the school? Are the kids alright?"

"We're working hard to make sure they aren't touched," Mac replied.

"Then you shouldn't leave. If they put someone in that they can push around …" Scott shook his head. "They're better off with Heather looking out for them."

"I know," Mac replied. "But I had _hoped_ that if he saw what they were pushing for ... " Mac took a breath and held it for a moment. "He's got more sway than I do."

"I'll let him know your worries if you want," Scott said. "Keep you out of it entirely. The X-Men are well-known for sticking our noses in where we're not wanted," he added with a smirk.

"Yeah, but when anyone's been looking, it's all hunky-dory," Mac said.

"That doesn't exactly make me feel good about sending any kids we pick up your way, Mac," Scott told him frankly.

"I know," he replied. "But I have to keep numbers up. I'm working on it, really. But if one of you guys could pay attention…" He slid a piece of paper Scott's way. "Or take a peek…"

Scott peeked at the codes on the paper and nodded. "You know, I think the Chicago tech department has been playing with a few things. They've got a technopath genius that helped Logan track down Sabretooth. It would be interesting to see what they could come up with together on another project."

"Honestly, I'm not sure what they're up to," Mac said. "And if I'm being totally open, I really don't want to know. Makes it easier to look for an exit if I don't know all the details."

"Like I said, we're good at sticking our noses in," Scott said. "If you don't want to know, that's fine, but it sounds like something we should at least look into."

"I'd like to know once I'm out, but at this point, I need plausible deniability."

"Fine." Scott pocketed the paper. "You know if you need it, my team will get you out."

"I know," Mac said, nodding. "I just … really don't want to see it get to that point. We're supposed to be Canada's version of the Fantastic Four or the Avengers. I just wish they'd back off and get out of the middle of everything."

"Yeah, we've been keeping an eye on the climate over there," Scott said quietly. "We had a bad run with our government a couple years back, and it looks like you've got the same issues."

"No kidding," Mac said darkly. "Same people stirring the pot too."

"I don't exactly feel comfortable recommending kids to that school if those are the people looking into it," Scott pointed out.

"I know, but officially, I have to argue for it," Mac said. "Unofficially — pick up anyone you can."

Scott nodded. "We'll keep an eye out," he promised. "And Mac — I'm really hoping we can get this cleared up. You two have done a good job with that school so far."

"You and me both," he agreed. "And it wasn't until after it was running smooth that _they_ got involved."

"Sounds about right," Scott said.

The silence stretched out for a little while before Mac spoke up. "You know Logan won't return my calls, right?"

"You lied to him, Mac. I don't know what to tell you to fix that."

"I'm not pushing for you to tell me anything," Mac said. "Only thing that'll fix it is some time and a face-to-face when he's ready to listen."

"Yeah. Well, I'll talk to Kitty, ask her if she can spare her favorite tech student," Scott said. "We'll get this figured out. Those kids deserve the best we can give."

"When you figure it out, just act on it," Mac said. "I don't need to know. And I'm used to that kind of a situation anyhow. It'd keep Alpha Flight separate from the government that way — at least enough that it'll be believable when the news breaks."

"Like I said, we'll look into it. And you know as soon as Logan finds anything out, that's it."

"Kind of what I was banking on," Mac admitted. "Guy doesn't really seem to know when to keep quiet about anything and he's incapable of keeping out of things if it's something like this."

By that time, dessert had come around, and the kids were starting to get a little bit rowdier with some sugar in them. "Dad, Mr. Hudson, you don't have to be serious the _whole_ dinner," Charlie said as she pushed some of the chocolate cake their way.

Mac smirked her way. "You got good kids, Summers."

* * *

It didn't take David any time at all in the Chicago campus to find all kinds of names and titles attached to the people looking in to Mac's school — and the kids that went there. But he was smart enough to wait until he had a substantial list to hand over to Wolverine before he mentioned it to Kitty.

But that didn't mean that he wasn't a little bit nervous when the crew showed up in Chicago to go over the lists.

Logan and K got there early in the morning, with Charlie joining them for the trip simply to bump up her lesson with Rachel and also because she enjoyed being around the couple at the time. Logan was generally in a great mood over the coming little one, and he had a tendency to drag everyone else along with him when he was like that, empathic or not.

Once they arrived, Charlie split off to go with her older sister — who had thought ahead and brought Bobby and Willow to meet them, and since Willow was in a particular phase in which she thought her dad hung the moon, that was also a good mood for Charlie to be around.

And Kitty, of course, had Nina, recently one year old, when she and David met up with Logan and K. "Took you forever to get here. You missed to look of betrayal when she said 'mama' first."

"Smart girl," Logan said with a smirk.

"Smart Nina," the little girl chanted back at him.

"Oh, yeah, she says that a lot too," Kitty laughed. "I think she's heard it a lot." She looked Logan over with a raised eyebrow. "No yellow today … black and silver … not good for whoever you're going after."

"You knew I was comin' so I could get to work," Logan said, pulling K along before Kitty could hand off Nina to him.

David cleared his throat. "Right, yeah. So. I've got a solid list of names for you," he said as he looked through the printouts he'd brought to hand to Logan. "I'm not much of an expert on things on the other side of Niagara, but you know, if you see anyone you don't like…"

Logan started down the list with a frown. "Did you get pictures for all these guys?"

"Yeah, on my computer," David said. "Pretty much anything I could get on a cursory sweep without alerting anyone I was looking."

Logan nodded and gestured for David to lead the way. "I'm going to guess that a lot of these guys are operating under fake names. Anyone high-profile would have been disqualified right off."

"Probably," David said. "I mean, looking into a school full of pre-teens and teens, I wouldn't want my name on anything either."

"No," K said, shaking her head. "He means they wouldn't be given the position. If they were too high-profile, or too high-ranking, it would be a red flag and draw attention to what they were doing."

"Right." David held the door open for the two of them. "So, this is everything I've got so far. I'm pretty sure I got all the names, but if you want me to dig deeper…" He cracked open his laptop and showed it to the two Howletts.

Logan pulled a chair out for K and then leaned over her shoulder as they started skimming through the names. Logan picked out nearly half a dozen, and K added two more to the list before they both agreed that anyone that didn't have a picture was questionable at best.

"Got 'em sorted by hit count," David said. "The names that come up most often are on top. Last few took me the longest to find."

"Yeah, but the ones that come up the least are probably the most sketchy," K pointed out.

"Well, Kitty said it's better to piss you off at the end, so I figured if anyone on the list was worth, you know…" David shrugged. "Get you through the whole list first…"

"Destroy all of their hard drives if you can," Logan said. "Nuke 'em."

David let out a scoffing noise. "If I can." He cracked his knuckles. "That's my favorite thing to do. Straight up destruction is _way_ easier than trying to pull out bits and pieces."

"Make sure you have a hack into the surveillance on their offices," K added. "If it's worth saving, they'll run for it."

"You want a live feed to your computers?"

"No, I want it to my comm," Logan said before he gave K a kiss on the top of the head. "I'm gonna go in after 'em."

"O...kay. I'll send it to your comm then," David said. "You want me to wait to trash their stuff until you get there? Because I don't want to give you away."

"Yeah. Just until I can get there," Logan agreed before he headed back toward the stairs. "Believe me: they'll know I'm comin' anyhow." When he got to where Kitty and America were, he looked around the room with a smirk. "Okay. Who's gonna go help me wreck the place?"

"Oh, you know you can count me in," Kitty said immediately.

"What kinda wrecking?" America asked, sprawled out on the couch with Lucy.

"What kind do you wanna do?" Logan asked with his arms crossed.

"Well, if it's just metaphorical, I don't want any part in it."

"No, it's actual trash anything any which way," Logan said. "I'm plannin' on spillin' a few gallons of someone else's blood." He shrugged. "So it's not an official mission, I guess."

"No kidding," Lucy said, looking a bit taken aback.

"I guess it's up to you. Do you need super strength and invulnerability or a ninja?" America smirked.

"Honey, if you wanna stretch your legs, come on," Logan said. "I'll take both if you wanna go."

"Perfect." America got to her feet and kissed Lucy's forehead. "Be home in a few. Don't wait up," she said before she snagged Kitty around the waist to pull her along. "C'mon. You can leave Nina with K. _She_ doesn't need the glitter. She's safe."

"Oh, no," Kitty said before she carefully handed Nina off to Lucy. "I promised she'd get time."

"You are so hateful to be so gorgeous."

"I can't help it," Kitty said with a shrug before she laid a hand on Logan and started sinking through the floor. "It's just the way I am."

America had to run down to the hangar while they sank through the floor, but when she spotted the two of them getting in a jet, she called out to them both, "What, you want to give them a head's up we're coming? GIve me coordinates and let me take you through a dimensional backdoor. _Way_ more fun."

"Can you put us right in their offices?" Logan asked.

"If your coordinates are specific enough, and they don't have dimensional barriers — which pretty much _no one_ on this planet has — then yeah."

"Pretty sure that's not gonna be an issue," he replied before he gestured to Kitty for her to go get the details from David. "I'm up for divin' in if you are."

"Like I said, way more fun that way," America said, rolling up her sleeves. "And there's just something fun about the look on their faces when you surprise 'em."

"I dunno," Logan replied. "Last time these guys thought I knew more than I should, they started offin' themselves before I could even get into the country."

"Well then the fast way is even better," America pointed out. "Either way, they're gonna stop screwing with our friendly neighborhood super school up north, right? I'm all for it."

"That's the idea," Logan agreed.

When Kitty returned with the specific coordinates, America concentrated for a second before her eyes lit up and she kicked a star-shaped hole in the space in front of her. "Oh, it's so much easier doing this with Terran destinations. Love you guys, but you are _so_ behind in some things."

"Drama queen," Logan muttered before he and Kitty followed her lead to go in after the guy in the office.

They'd barely made their appearance before the man in question positively freaked out and tried to make a break for it, though that was never going to work out well for him. Logan took off after him, and before Kitty could get to the guy's desk, a sickening crack echoed through the hall just outside of the office as Logan got to work on the guy.

The man was begging, promising to give Logan whatever he wanted, but it just wasn't that kind of mission, and Logan didn't even say a word as he worked him over.

"I _think_ I'm supposed to look for more intel?" Kitty said, pointedly ignoring what was happening in the hallway.

"Sure, yeah, you do that. I'm going to see what can be smashed," America said. "Computers… files…"

The girls were done before Logan was, and he only stopped when Kitty pointed out that they had more than one stop to go to.

"Pace yourself," America said with a smirk as her eyes lit up so she could bring up the next portal.

"Don't gotta," Logan replied as he cracked his neck. "That's the whole point of the healin'."

"Yeah, but the rage wears out," America said with a shrug.

"Speak for yourself," he replied.

"Just come on. I have to get home before my girlfriend decides to start pushing for kids again. I _just_ talked her down, too."

"Oh, that's a losing battle," Kitty said with a laugh. "And you left her alone. With _K_. Who is adorable with her little bump."

"Look, you." America pointed a finger Kitty's way. " _I'd_ have to carry it. Lucy _can't_. I get to have the final say."

"And you would be _adorable_ ," Kitty said, though it was worth noting that Logan wasn't looking at either of them.

"Yeah, keep talking like that and I'll help Logan," America said as she led the way through her portal with a shake of her head.

"You want a lesson in torture?" Kitty said before making a sweeping gesture to Logan as he pounced on the next office rat. "Be my guest."

The three of them kept up like that through all of the names on David's list, hitting each of them in turn and with no warning with America pulling up portals for them to dive through. By the time they got to the last name on the list, the girls were getting worn down and were both ready to get back to their respective significant others.

When they returned, Logan, well bloodied even if the black, gray, and silver uniform hid it better than the yellow, dropped a handful of flash drives in front of David on their return. "Let me know if I gotta go back," he told him.

David stared at Logan for a moment with wide eyes before he nodded and scooped up the drives. "Okay."

"Showers," Logan said, still glaring at anyone standing too close.

David pointed to the left. "First door you come to."

Logan simply turned and headed off as Kitty smiled at David and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "That was so much fun — almost like going back to Japan."

"Um… is it a requirement to be insane to be an X-Man or…?"

"It … might be?" Kitty replied, looking at him with an air of suspicion. "I've been following him around since I was fourteen."

"That explains it," David said as he got down to work at his computer. "But… you know… not like I'm complaining to see the problem… you know. Disappear. I like working at these schools. They should be safe."

"You have no idea the kind of creeps he's hunting down," Kitty said. "Read the book that Kate published. Same guys. That's why he wanted the pictures."

"Oh." David glanced up at Kitty. " _Oh_. God. What... "

"Exactly," Kitty said. "And they're sticking their nose into Guardian's school."

"If there's anyone else, I'll find them," David promised, hooking up the flash drive to his laptop as the intel started to fly by at superhuman speeds.

* * *

"Hewwo." Kade had climbed up by K as she was stretched out on the couch, with half an eye on the kids playing around together, though the little guy had taken a shining to K and loved to come "check on the baby" whenever he saw her.

"Hey, sweetheart," K told him, readjusting her arm to get more comfortable.

"Baby?" Kade asked, still trying to climb up until Kate got there and pushed him the rest of the way up so he could grin at K.

"Still in there," she said. "Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"

Kade scrunched up his face at K. "Baby… baby girl," he said.

"Smart boy," Kate said, ruffling his hair affectionately, careful of the little purple Band-aid he was wearing on his forehead from a recent tumble trying to keep up with his bigger siblings.

"We'll just have to wait and see," K said. "Sadie wants a brother."

Kade grinned. "Baby girl," he sang out, trying to snuggle K's stomach.

"What's your take, Hawkeye the elder?" K asked, peeking up at Kate.

"I think if you have a girl, I'm in trouble, because my other little boy follows Sadie around like a lost puppy half the time," Kate laughed.

"I think Kade is right," K told her. "And Logan does so _well_ with little girls."

"His tiny little army," Kate agreed with a laugh as she sat down next to K, tipping her head back.

"So, how long are you spacing the next one?" K teased with a perfectly straight expression.

"Please," Kate said in a tired tone. "I honestly think I'm at my limit. Just keeping up with Kade _and_ with Krissy teleporting now…"

"She's getting really good," K pointed out. "And she's been spending a lot of time trying to play with Elin … so you know where she is anyhow."

"It's genetic," Kate said with a smile as she reached out with one hand to catch Kade before he could tumble off the couch trying to get down to go play with the other kids.

"That poor boy has the worst luck with balance," K said, shaking her head.

"He's trying to go faster than his muscles have developed," Kate explained.

"Also genetic," K agreed.

Kate rolled her eyes at that. "Like Cody doesn't do the same thing trying to keep up with Chance. It's a little sibling thing. I did the same with Susan."

"Yes, I'm sure it was stunningly adorable," she said with a smirk.

"I was the cutest kid ever," Kate teased, setting Kade down so he could run off to go play with Kaleb. "One of these days, he's going to figure out running without falling, and I am in _trouble_."

"You're always in trouble, Hawkeye," K pointed out.

"Oh, yeah. It's a state of being." Kate grinned and then leaned over to snuggle into K's shoulder. "It's been kind of nice, though. Just… teaching archery and looking out for Kade."

"Yeah? You slowing down on me?"

"No," Kate said quickly, picking her head up and sticking her tongue out at K. "I just mean it's been nice to slowly get back into training instead of, you know — here, there's a crisis; let's _immediately deal with that._ "

"The guys want to handle that really really badly," K replied.

Kate laughed. "Well, Kurt's got his hands full with Krissy…"

"You'd think so," she said. "But he's still stirring up trouble, jockeying for another godfather title, like they're prizes or something."

"He just likes the official acknowledgement that he's claimed all of yours," Kate laughed quietly.

"He'll have to learn to share," K told her. "We promised Peter that the kids can stay with him for the night or weekend or whatever when this one makes their debut."

Kate chuckled. "That's probably a good idea. Kade can hardly keep from getting in trouble as it is."

"We figured we can't keep leaning on you guys and Scott and Annie. It's not really fair. Especially when you have your own brood to contend with."

"Woah, woah." Kate held her hands up in the time-out position. "Just because my baby boy is a handful _right now_ does _not_ mean anything. I swear, it's _way_ too fun having your kids around. We don't mind. At all."

K shook her head with a smile. "And you also have covered for us _a lot._ "

"Hazard of having husbands who are best friends," Kate pointed out with a smile. "Not to mention Krissy _adores_ Elin… Kaleb follows Sadie around… and Kari won't stop flirting with your son — sorry about your luck."

"Nothing to be sorry about," K said, trying to relax a little more. "But … we're looking at spreading it around a little more."

"This has nothing to do with me dying my hair purple, does it? Because I swear, I'm in top form."

"Take it easy, big sis," K laughed. "We just want them to know more people. Heather and Mac are at least temporarily blacklisted, so … no Canada. And everyone else is on the team."

"Well, they can always hang out with the Avengers," Kate teased. "Cap's baby face is beautiful."

"That's … kinda what I was thinking," K said.

"Especially seeing as we're stealing one of theirs," Kate said. "My adorable nephew starts in the fall. I've been teasing Clint about how he's getting better archery classes from me for _months_ now."

"Oh, you're just cruel," K laughed.

"But oh so very right," Kate laughed easily.

"Do you think you can share the godparent title with blondie? The old one. Not the purple one. Too many Hawkeyes in one place for that."

Kate chuckled. "I think me and Kurt will love them no matter what, and you know it."

"Yes, but … Steve needs to be teamed up on. And if this is a little girl …"

"He'll take it in a second, and you know it," Kate laughed. "No one can resist your kids. They're so pretty."

"And tiny," she said.

"That too." Kate stretched her legs out in front of her. "How's Elin, by the way? Krissy's concerned about her."

"She's … having a hard time with things," K admitted. "But she's doing a helluva lot better than I did, so … small wins, I guess."

"I saw Chance with her the other day." Kate smirked. "You want to talk about trouble…"

"She doesn't think anything of it," K promised. "They are just very good friends that watch out for each other. She has no idea about that crush."

"She is literally the only person in the school that doesn't know."

"I can't help that. She is just so used to him flirting with every girl around, she doesn't think he'd ever be interested. And with the way things are going?" She shrugged. "Probably easier on their father's blood pressures anyhow."

Kate let out a sigh. "It's too bad. He's such a sweetheart. You know when Veronica left, he was just… crushed. He's in for a rough time when he gets older."

"She'll try to watch out for him, I'm sure. She says they're best friends. _As far as boys go._ "

Kate laughed outright at that. "That… is the best caveat ever."

"Gotta draw the line somewhere, right?" K chuckled.

"They're going to be so much trouble together. I mean, even just being best friends…" Kate laughed. "Genetics."

K shook her head. "If we go by that, they should probably be at each other's throats."

"What? Have you seen them when they're on the same page? So. Much. Trouble." Kate grinned crookedly.

"Oh, I know," she agreed. "Not sure which one ticks me off more when they do that."

"I don't know, but let's hope Elin and Chance don't share a brain _that_ badly," Kate teased before she snuggled back into her friend.

"Impossible," K said, tipping her head to rest on Kate's.

At that, Kate snuggled in a little more. "At the risk of sounding overly old, they are growing up _way_ too fast."

"Is that why he keeps pushing for more?" K asked, sounding totally shocked.

Kate chuckled. "No, I think that yours just likes an army."

"And yours doesn't?"

"I never said that. We were talking about _yours_."

"Who has a timeshare with mine's brain."

Kate laughed and put her hand over K's mouth. "Shush. We've established this already. Now shhh and watch our kids be ridiculous together."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This concludes this volume of our 714 Universe ... please keep your eyes open for the NEXT Volume: "The X-Men's Guide To Dealing With Bullies". Don't forget to tip your writers by reviewing!


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